Ukraine war: School frozen in time after it was used as bomb shelter during nine months of fear
The date scribbled on the blackboard of a classroom in southern Ukraine still reads 23 February.
It was the day before Russia launched its invasion – and the last time children in the village of Snihurivka were able to study at their school.
Lines of desks and chairs stand empty – as if frozen in time.
An abandoned pair of little shoes, a drawstring bag of clothes and the odd pen offer the only hint of the routine, school-time bustle that once filled this building.
In its place for the past nine months has been only fear as the building became an impromptu bomb shelter for local residents.
Only now are staff finally able to consider reopening to students after a major Ukrainian counter-offensive recaptured the village, in the region of Mykolaiv, from Russian hands just over a fortnight ago, the deputy headmistress said.
“To be honest, when liberation happened, we were crying,” said Iryna Zaveriuhina, 52. “We could all breathe more easily.”
She showed Sky News how airstrikes from the early days of the war had shattered many of the school’s windows.
But the building includes a sprawling basement, which offered a vital place of sanctuary for around 400 adults and children to escape the threat from rockets and missiles.
The school has not been used since the day before the Russian invasion
Some came just at night. Others stayed down in the basement all the time – from the beginning of the invasion until after the Ukrainian forces arrived. The last two guests had only just dared to venture home when Sky News visited the school on Thursday.
A row of children’s beds, one with a soft toy, can still be seen in the darkness lining the wall of one large, underground room. There is also a dirty bowl on the side.
There are no lights so the only way to see was with a torch light from our mobile phones.
Teachers are hoping to reopen the school
Ms Zaveriuhina spent the first few weeks of the war helping out in the basement every other day from 8pm to 8am until the village fell under Russian control on 19 March.
She stopped visiting at that point but many others still used it.
Asked how she felt about returning to the shelter, she said: “To be honest I don’t know how to describe my feelings. I wish people never have to live again in basements. Some families were really scared and children as well. It was a nightmare.”
The school basement was used as a shelter
The teacher described how, despite the hardship of Russian occupation, residents remained defiant, with people often daring to raise the Ukrainian flag overnight on a flagpole outside the school – only for the Russians to bring it down the following day.
With the Russian forces now gone, the focus for teachers is to repair the damage the school suffered, regain electricity and work to enable children to return to class.
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The school normally holds around 350 pupils, aged six to 17, though Ms Zaveriuhina believes fewer than 50 of them are still in the village, as many families fled.
She is hopeful they will return. In the meantime, teachers have distributed a lot of books to parents to enable them to teach their children at home. A lack of internet and power means remote, online learning is particularly challenging.
“As soon as everyone is back here, everything will be okay. We are hoping for that,” she said.
Lidiia Varaksa’s kitchen was destroyed by a munition
Down the road from the school is a different example of resilience and survival.
At 82, Lidiia Varaksa was knocked off her feet and hit her head on a table when a munition exploded outside her small bungalow a few weeks ago, shattering an outdoor kitchen and punching pock marks into walls and pipes.
“This was my fridge,” she said, holding up the remains of a battered door. “Everything was hit.”
She lives alone, except for a dog, and has not heard from her two sons.
Lidiia Varaksa has not heard from her two sons
Her hair wrapped in a mustard-yellow headscarf, she said she did not know how she would be able to afford the repair work for her home and was worried about the approaching winter, as there was still no power for heat and light.
“How do I feel? I’m walking around and crying. There is nothing else I can do,” she said.
But she is not giving up.
“When the Ukrainian forces came here, people started to come out from their cellars.
“In my opinion, if I could just continue living like this until the end of my days, it can just be like that.
“Collapsed, destroyed [home], I don’t mind. I want to live peacefully until the end of my days.”
On Friday, Paola Paiva waited in a hotel near Caracas airport, nervous but giddy with excitement to be reunited with her brother, finally.
For five months, Arturo Suarez has been detained in a notorious prison in El Salvador.
“I am going to wait for my brother to call me,” she told Sky News, “and after giving him a hug, I want to just listen to him, listen to his voice. Let him talk and tell us his story.”
Suarez was one of the more than 250 Venezuelan migrants who had been living in America but were arrested in immigration raids by the Trump administration and sent to El Salvador, a showpiece act in the president’s promise to deport millions of migrants.
Paola Paiva holds a vigil for brother Arturo Suarez. Pic: Reuters
Most of the men had never even been to El Salvador before. Their detention has been controversial because the White House claims the men are all part of the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang but has provided little evidence to support this assertion.
The only evidence Paola had that Suarez was still alive was a picture of him published on a news website showing the inside of the maximum security CECOT jail.
He is one of dozens of men with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.
Now he is returning to his home country, one of the bargaining chips in a deal that saw the release of ten Americans and US permanent residents who had been seized by the Venezuelan authorities.
Venezuelans arrive back in home country after being detained in El Salvador
Paola had tried to go to the airport to greet her brother as he disembarked a charter plane bringing the men back from El Salvador but authorities told her to wait at a nearby hotel.
“They told us they are taking them all to a hotel to rest,” she said.
“But I managed to get someone to give my phone number on a piece of paper to my brother, so I am expecting his call tomorrow, as soon as he can access a phone.
“We heard they are going to perform some medical exams on them and check their criminal records,” she added. “I’m not afraid; I’m not worried since my brother has a clean record.
“I am so happy. I knew this day would happen, and that it would be unexpected, that no one was going to notify us. I knew it was going to be a total surprise.”
US citizens released from Venezuela. Pic: Reuters
The Trump administration had paid the El Salvador government, led by President Nayib Bukele, millions of dollars to imprison the men.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT last month, posing in front of prisoners for a photo opportunity.
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But Cristosal, an international human rights group based in El Salvador, says it has “documented systematic physical beatings, torture, intentional denial of access to food, water, clothing, health care,” inside the prison.
A video which was seemingly filmed aboard the charter flight bringing the Venezuelan migrants back to Caracas shows Arturo briefly talking about his experience inside.
He looks physically well but speaks into the camera and says: “We were four months with no communication, no phone calls, kidnapped, we didn’t know what (the) day was, not even the time.
“We were beat up at breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he continues.
Sky News interviewed Arturo Suarez‘s brother Nelson near his home in the US in April, weeks after Arturo – an aspiring singer – had been arrested by immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents while filming a music video inside a house.
Nelson said he believed Arturo’s only crime was “being Venezuelan and having tattoos.” He showed me documents that indicate Arturo has no criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in.
Now Nelson is delighted Arturo is being released – but worries for his future.
“The only thing that casts a shadow in such a moment of joy is that bit of anger when I think that all the governments involved are going to use my brother’s story, and the others on that flight, as political gain,” he said.
“Each of them will tell a different story, making themselves the heroes, when the reality is that many innocent people suffered unfairly and unnecessarily, and many families will remain separated after this incident due to politics, immigration and fear.”
At least 34 people have died after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam, according to state media reports.
The Wonder Sea boat was reportedly carrying 53 people, including five crew members, when it capsized due to strong winds in Ha Long Bay on Saturday.
It happened at roughly 2pm local time (7am GMT). Rescue teams have found 11 survivors and recovered 34 bodies, eight of them children, the state-run Vietnam News Agency said, citing local authorities.
Rescuer in Ha Long Bay are searching for survivors. Pic: QDND via AP
The People’s Army Newspaper, which cited local border guards, said authorities have not yet confirmed details about the tourists, including their nationalities, as the rescue operation continues.
Most of the passengers were tourists, including about 20 children, from the country’s capital city, Hanoi, the newspaper said.
The incident comes shortly after the arrival of Storm Wipha in the South China Sea, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and lightning to the area.
A body being carried on stretcher after a tourist boat capsized in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Pic: QDND via AP
The named storm is the third typhoon to hit the South China Sea this year, and is expected to make landfall along the northern coast of Vietnam early next week.
Disruptions linked to the storm have also had an impact on air travel, according to Noi Bai Airport.
The airport reported that nine incoming flights were diverted to other airports, while three outgoing flights were temporarily grounded due to adverse weather conditions.
Tourist boats cruise in Halong Bay. File pic: Reuters
The winds brought by Storm Wipha reached up to 63mph (101kmph) and gusts of up to 68mph (126kmph) as it passed south of Taiwan on Saturday, according to the island’s Central News Agency.
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Ha Long Bay is around 125mi (200km) north east of Hanoi and attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Of those who visit Ha Long Bay, many choose to take overnight boat tours to further explore the area.
World
Gaza: More than 30 people killed ‘as Israeli troops open fire towards Palestinians waiting for aid’
More than 30 people have been killed after Israeli troops opened fire towards crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
The deaths occurred near distribution hubs operated by the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the territory.
At least 32 people were killed on Saturday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, while a further 100 people were injured, according to local reports.
Most of the deaths came as Palestinians massed in the Teina area, around 3km (2 miles) away from a GHF aid distribution centre east of the city of Khan Younis.
More than 30 people killed near aid distribution centres. Pic: Mariam Dagga/AP
Mahmoud Mokeimar said he was walking with crowds of people – mostly young men – towards the food hub when troops fired warning shots as the crowd advanced, before opening fire towards the marching people.
“It was a massacre… the occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said.
Injured Palestinians are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Mariam Dagga/AP
Akram Aker said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones.
“They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” he said.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 25 bodies, along with dozens of wounded.
Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of yards north of another GHF hub in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, the hospital said.
The army and GHF did not immediately comment on Saturday’s violence.
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The GFH, which has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip, says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians.
But local health officials and witnesses say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli army fire as they try to reach the distribution hubs.
The GHF, which employs private armed guards, says there have been no deadly shootings at its sites, though this week, 20 people were killed at one of its locations, most of them in a stampede.
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The group accused Hamas agitators of causing a panic, but gave no evidence to back the claim.
The army, which is not at the sites but secures them from a distance, says it only fires warning shots if crowds get too close to its forces.
The 21-month war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
An Israeli military offensive has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, while Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar in recent weeks, but international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs.
US President Donald Trump said another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, without providing details.
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