The heavy clashes in Avdiyivka, a city 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv in Donetsk Oblast, may lead to a humanitarian disaster as locals are trapped without electricity, water supply and almost no heating in the city under constant shelling.
The evacuation hasn’t started yet, although the authorities and emergency service are preparing for one. Shelling from the Russian-backed side, after a promised cease-fire never materialized, hasn’t stopped as of noon on Jan. 31.
The local authorities are able to evacuate 12,000 citizens and settle them in surrounding 10 local cities Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, Pokrovsk, Selidovo, Hornyak, Novohorodske, Ukrainsk, Bakhmut and Slovyansk.
The head of the State Emergency Service said that 80 buses and two electric trains are waiting to evacuate the citizens. They can evacuate 4,600 people at a time. The population of Avdiivka was 35,000 people in 2013 before the Donbas war started, though it decreased when unknown number of people moved out from the city.
The head of Donetsk at military and civil administration Pavlo Zhebrivskiy wrote on his Facebook that 10 tons of food aid are heading to the city. According to him, the city is supplied with drink water. The State Emergency Service opened 11 points with heating and warm food.
Zhebrivskiy wrote that Avdiyivka’s industrial zone was under heavy shelling all night on Jan.31 from the side of Russian-backed separatists.
Fighting is concentrated in the Avdiyivka suburb, where a giant coking plant is located. The plant, which produces heating for the city, stopped operating on the evening of Jan. 30 due to power outages. It led to a reduction in heating supply, while froze outside reached minus 15C.
Evgeniy Vilinsky, deputy governor of Donetsk Oblast, told the Kyiv Post by phone that now Avdiyivka is supplied with heating, but not for a long time – the plant needs electricity supply in order to continue to produce heating. He added that none of the locals were wounded on Jan. 31.
Andrei Rumaryk, a volunteer and ex-soldier, who served is Avdiyivka in 2015, confirmed that the evacuation planned by authorities hasn’t started yet, but people started moving out from the city on their vehicles. The mobile connection almost doesn’t work in the city, he added.
Rumaryk, who visited Avdiyivka on Jan. 30, said that after the shelling slowed down in 2015, people started coming back to the city, opening the new business there. According to him, a population may reach 20,000 citizens today.
The group controlling the Minsk II cease-fire agreement promised 10 hours cease-fire from 10 a.m. to solve a humanitarian crisis. However, the agreement hasn’t been implemented yet.
“They promised 10 hours of quiet mode to restore power lines, but now everything is quite tense and noisy,” Zhebrivskiy wrote in the morning.
He said that team of electricians is ready to repair the power lines as soon as a ceasefire will be reached. As of 12:45 p.m., the heavy shelling continued, Zhebrivskiy said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko contributed to this story.
