The Donetsk Records: Living with Shelling & Lack of Water🧵
A hotel we stayed at was previously shelled. Every few minutes you can hear the shelling from anywhere in the city-it sounds just like thunder. Most buildings in Donetsk have been shelled at some point. Nowhere is safe.
Mostly you’ll see restaurants, shops & buildings boarded up because there’s no point to fully fixing them until this is over. It will likely just get shelled again in spite of the fighting move south & west. Nevertheless businesses continue to operate. This is how people live.
One of the things few mention is how Ukraine bombed the water pipes that go from Kiev to Donbass. So most flats don’t have water & people go collect water or buy liters. In our hotel we got water twice a day for one hour & no, not hot. That’s it. The rest of time we used jugs.
It’s not just an attack on a human need & a clear crime against humanity. It’s also the realization of how much we use water & faucets without thinking. The mere task of brushing your teeth or washing your face becomes a hassle because you have no water flow & need to improvise.
And then none of this matters when you know that the people of Donbass have been living this reality for 9 years. And even all of that becomes meaningless when you realize that water & showers are the least of worries, when you may wake up to bombs or simply never wake up.
How privileged are westerners for not knowing a day without water, nor a day with bombing. The only other countries I’ve seen lacking basic infrastructure, lack it because of US sanctions & interventions. The resilience of these regions we do not have, because we’ve never had to.
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