"We were completely blocked": seven foreigners were in Kramatorsk during the firing
As a result of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the founder of the organization and Colombian deputy Sergio Kharamlio, writer Ector Abad and journalist Katalina Gomez were injured. The organization noted that they were slightly injured. A group of foreigners was accompanied by one of the Ukrainian writers whose name is not disclosed for ethical reasons. It is in serious condition.
Two Dutch Frankie Van Hintoum and Cohen Van Austan came to Kramatorsk to cook free fries for the Ukrainians for free. At the time of the rocket attack, they dinner in the restaurant in the center of Kramatorsk. Their story about the surviving was transmitted to NOS. "We just finished eating when we heard a loud blow and felt a change in air pressure. We saw the fire and things that were falling. We tried to escape, but we didn't feel it from which side it happened," Van Hintoum recalled.
The Dutchman noted that a large number of people were under the rubble. "We could no longer come out through the entrance. There were debris everywhere. We were also completely blocked and in the fragments of the glass, but mostly we had scratches. There was a woman with a baby, I raised her," Van Hintoum said. Also, according to NOS, a Flemish journalist Arno de Decker was present at the restaurant, but he left the institution ten minutes before the tragedy.
"This is a meeting place where everyone goes. Residents, volunteers, and military are eaten there," he emphasized. The journalist heard rocket strikes from the hotel and hid from danger, but later returned to the restaurant. "There was nothing left. I saw the bodies that lay on the ground and the rescuers who were looking for the rubble," he described. The Telegraph Colin Fryman journalist also dinner at a restaurant with a translator shortly before the rocket strike.
He published details of how he survived the shelling. "While almost all other decent establishments are mostly closed, they offer excellent pizza, cold drinks and the desired rest from the front in the Donbass nearby," he wrote. At seven in the evening, Fryman and the translator watched the menu of the institution when the phone call made them forget about dinner and go on the outskirts of the city. A loud explosion came soon in the city.
The military in conversation with the journalist suggested that the projectile could fall near the restaurant. "While we returned to the place of the explosion, rescuers made their way through a huge bunch of fragments that were smoked by carrying on the stretchers of the killed and wounded. Somewhere in the middle of those debris, which firefighters frantically cut down with axes, there was a table behind which we sat," Fryman said.
He noted that if the call did not destroy their plans, they would have eaten half of their pizza with the translator at the time of the blow. "Among those whom we saw, there was a young waiter who was going to accept our orders when we were summoned. He was all in the blood and looked very stunned, although I was relieved that he was still conscious", Fryman remembered. Near the restaurant, the journalist met a woman whose friend led two teenage daughters that evening.
"They got it from the debris, but I haven't seen any of the girls yet," she said. Another woman told Fryman that her brother Nikita, who cannot get out of the rubble, is inside the establishment near the stove. "It happened that the interview we were called to us did not happen. But I am very glad that we did not give up," the journalist added. We will remind, it is already known about the eight dead as a result of rocket strike on Kramatorsk. Among the dead are children.