Kherson, Ukraine: Scores flee for their lives ahead of Russia’s sham
A man and his son speak of their wife and mother being killed by a bomb that hit her spine and back in several places.
Even here, in comparative safety, they did not want to be identified for fear that the Russians might target other family members they left behind.
“If they see us, they’ll shoot everyone left there,” the son told CNN. “We left on foot, over the water in the river.”
Multiple locals and several Ukrainian officials told CNN the vote had been scheduled for April 27.
Yet the day before, Russian-backed officials announced a series of new government officials in the occupied city, leading some observers to think the referendum may have been postponed in favor of these new appointments.
Fear of the impending vote and its implications — a possible strengthening of Russia’s control — has led many residents to flee fast.
Cmr. Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, told CNN that the Ukrainian military have managed to help evacuate around 7,000 people from the area across “100 miles of front line, some by bicycle, some by wheelbarrows, or by foot.”
“People don’t want and cannot live under occupation,” Vilkul said.
Passage out of Kherson and the surrounding villages in the region has been treacherous.
Over the last week a long line of cars — estimated to be in the hundreds by several locals — snaked its way towards the occupied town of Snihurivka, as Kherson residents who had managed to flee their own town were yet again blocked by Russian troops.
In another video shot by a Kherson resident who was fleeing, seen by CNN, a long line of cars stood at a standstill on another exit road, to the city’s northeast, towards Kryvyi Rih.
Over the Easter weekend, the pace of evacuations rose, officials told CNN. They began to drop on Tuesday when locals said that Russian checkpoints stopped permitting crossings out of occupied territory. Some desperate evacuees left behind their cars and set out on foot across fields, locals said.
Bicycles were abandoned in large numbers when locals reached Ukrainian-manned checkpoints, according to multiple locals CNN spoke to.
One mother from Kherson, who asked to stay anonymous for safety concerns, told CNN she had whisked her two sons and daughter out “as fast as possible” ahead of the referendum, fearing that the widespread conscription of men aged 18 to 60 would follow.
“We are completely occupied. There is no food, no money. We have nothing, they’ll do a referendum and take our children….
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