Editor's Note: The following Kyiv Post story was originally published on Feb. 28, 2014 at 12:46 a.m.
It was another day of funerals on Feb. 24 for Ukraine, as the nation continued to mourn the nearly 100 victims killed in EuroMaidan clashes between police and protesters. Fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is now charged with mass murder and a manhunt has begun for him.
Here’s our Feb. 21 story:
As police bullets and tear gas rained down on protesters at Independence Square just after dawn on Feb. 20, the bloody body of one of the first victims of the violence was laid out with a candle memorial near the western barricade on Khreshchatyk Street.
A priest prayed over the body. A woman wept. A man, shaking his clenched fists in the air, shouted: “They are killing our heroes!”
A video filmed on Feb. 22 during clashes with police shows protesters being shot and killed, purportedly by snipers behind police lines.
Another man draped a Ukrainian flag on the man and then placed a sign above his head with a warning for Ukraine’s president: “Yanukovych, you’re next.”
Central Kyiv became a war zone just after breakfast time on Feb. 20, shattering a truce reached the night before by embattled President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders. Either police and protesters weren’t listening, or they had different orders.
When the bodies were counted, the victims’ total for the day had reached at least 50 people while the total number of fatalities since the start of the EuroMaidan protests is nearly 100 people dead.
In the days since the Feb. 20 bloodbath, funerals have been held, tears have been shed and a collective grief has set in throughout Ukraine with schools and other events cancelled, as well as businesses closed.
Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, newly freed from nearly three years in prison, urged the tens of thousands of people on Kyiv’s Independence Square on Feb. 22 to never forget EuroMaidan’s “heroes” because the bullets that killed them were meant for everyone.
A 3-minute, 21-second video on the violence in Kyiv on Feb. 18-20, killing nearly 100 people.
Find the story of two EuroMaidan activists, the members of Democratic Alliance party here.
