UKRAINE: Hundreds of mourners attend the funeral of a young nurse killed during a Ukrainian military assault in Kramatorsk

Record ID: 645086

  • Title: UKRAINE: Hundreds of mourners attend the funeral of a young nurse killed during a Ukrainian military assault in Kramatorsk
  • Date: 5th May 2014
  • Summary: COFFIN LID RAISED BODY IN COFFIN
  • Embargoed: 20th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA77JWBXOVESJU34BAPRD2A2F7
  • Story Text: Hundreds of mourners came to the funeral of a young nurse on Monday (May 5) who had attended to the wounds of pro-Moscow separatist fighters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk .
    Nurse Julia Izotova was 21 and died on May 3 during a Ukrainian military assault on a checkpoint near Kramatorsk.
    Witnesses said her car came under fire and that she died on the way to the hospital.
    The memorial was held in town's main square.

    "What brought me to the square is a great misfortune which hit the whole city, and not just the city but the whole Donetsk region and the whole of Ukraine. The fascist junta sent the Right Sector, punitive troops, to suppress dissent in the Donetsk region and eastern Ukraine. And today we are parting with our young people who are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the victors who defended Europe from fascism," said Kramatorsk resident Alexei.
    Shot in the back by what friends and relatives say were high-calibre bullets fired from a column of Ukrainian armour as she travelled by car after dark between rebel-held towns, Izotova joins a small but growing list of dead in this mining region's month-old uprising.

    "She was just a child. Our children were simply shot in the car, senselessly shot. How can one talk about justice? They burned so many people alive in Odessa and then finished them by beating and shooting. They show that, and we just trust and keep waiting for someone to do something to us. We should not wait any longer. People, wake up. If you even do a little it is already something," said Yelena.
    Her open coffin was laid at the foot of the town hall, occupied by gunmen who say they would rather secede than live under a government in Kiev that has chosen Europe over Russia.

    "We are defending our fatherland and nothing else. We are not trying to impose anything on anyone. We are defending ourselves, our children, elderly and women. We don't want the Right Sector and other crud to come here to kill us," said masked separatist who did not give his name.
    Hundreds gathered to pay their respects, in a scene that recalled late February in Kiev, when coffin after coffin was borne through a crowd on the Maidan, the capital's central square, carrying the victims of gun-battles with police defending Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich.
    As the funeral procession went through the town angry mourners in defiance of Kiev current authorities stomped on the Ukrainian flag that was later set on fire.
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