Just four children are known to be still living in Avdiivka, one of the frontline towns most heavily under fire in eastern Ukraine, a local official has said.
Vitali Barabash said authorities know the location of two of the four children – a nine-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother – and said they planned a forced evacuation of them next week.
Barabash, head of Avdiivka’s military administration, alluded to the difficulties convincing some families to leave their homes, even those in places seeing the heaviest fighting.
“We cannot forcibly evacuate adults, so we just have to rely on their responsibility and their instinct for survival,” he told Ukrainian television Saturday morning.
Thirty-five people have been transferred to safety over the past week, making a total of more than three hundred in the last month, he said. About 1,800 people remain out of a pre-war population of 26,000.
“We are waiting for the opportunity to take the children out because there is a lot of shelling in the city, rocket attacks. We won’t put the children in danger,” Barabash said.
Some context: Avdiivka is near the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and has also come under sustained attack by Russian forces.
A Ukrainian soldier last month said that the situation in Avdiivka was “difficult,” as Russian forces have increased the number of airstrikes and have been able to cut off supply routes.
