Ukraine war: School frozen in time after it was used as bomb shelter during nine months of fear

Published

3 years ago

November 28, 2022

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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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.”

World

Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

Published

8 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Thousands defy ban to join Pride march in Budapest

If Hungary’s authorities thought banning this year’s Pride march would keep people off the streets, they were wrong.

Thousands turned out in Budapest, defying a law which said LGBTQ+ events like this should be cancelled to protect children.

The crowd was determined to fight for their rights.

“This is a special march, not just because it was the 30th, but also because it was banned,” said Orsi, who proudly wore a rainbow headband and waved a rainbow flag.

“I mean that’s all the more reason to go out on the street and show that Budapest and Hungary is a place where everybody is welcome, where love is equal,” she added.

Attendees had been warned that just being there could mean a 500 euro fine or prison time for the organisers.

They were told police would use facial recognition cameras to identify them, but they didn’t care.

Orsi said it was worth a fine.

Leonas had travelled from Poland to show his support and was also happy to take the risk.

“LGBT rights are attacked across the whole world, and we need to defend each other and work with each other,” he said.

Viktor Orban’s government has repeatedly pitched family values against LGBTQ+ rights.

“The mother is a woman, the father is a man and leave our kids alone,” he told conservative audiences in the past.

He says he is protecting Hungary’s Christian values, but critics say this is just part of a wider attack on democracy which has happened during his 15 years in control.

The Pride ban is just the latest targeting of LGBTQ+ communities.

In 2020, the country abolished its legal recognition of transgender people, and in 2021, politicians passed a law banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

While many were outraged by the attempt to cancel the Pride march, a small number of far-right activists organised demonstrations to show their support:

“Hungary and the Hungarian nation don’t want the aggressive LGBTQ+ propaganda. They are dangerous for our families, they are dangerous for our kids,” said Gabor Kelemen, a member of the 64 Counties Youth Movement.

However, the packed streets showed many disagree.

At one point, as far as the eye could see, the march snaked through streets and across the city’s bridges. The sound of drums and whistles mixing with gay anthems blaring out of speakers.

The organisers said they believed this will be the largest Pride march ever in Budapest.

The crowd was eclectic, with Hungarians from different communities joining a demonstration which many believe is now part of a fight for Hungary’s future.

“This is not only about the complexity of Pride, not only about love or equality… for Hungarians, it’s about sticking together, supporting each other, showing the government that we believe in a different kind of Hungary. We believe in freedom, we believe in democracy,” said activist Adam Kanicsar.

Despite the ban, today Pride attendees were celebrating a victory. But make no mistake, many in Hungary do not support the parade or what they see as an attack on traditional values.

Next year, the country will hold a general election, a vote which will expose how divided Hungary really is.

World

Chants of ‘death to America’ at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Published

8 hours ago

June 28, 2025

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Chants of 'death to America' at funeral for Iranian military commanders and scientists

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Tehran to mourn top military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Iran’s 12-day war with Israel.

State-run Press TV said the event – dubbed the “funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power” – was held for 60 people, including four women and four children.

It said at least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among the dead, including head of the Revolutionary Guard General Hossein Salami and the head of the guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

Their coffins were driven to Azadi Square on trucks adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags.

Chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” could be heard.

Attending the funeral were Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures, including Ali Shamkhani who was seriously wounded during the fighting and is an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader.

There was no immediate sign of the supreme leader in the state broadcast of the funeral.

Iran’s president later thanked people for turning out.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you dear people,” Mr Pezeshkian wrote on social media.

“With love, you bid farewell to the martyrs of our homeland, and our voice of unity reached the ears of the world.”

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi called the deaths “hard and painful”.

Seemingly referencing the recent airstrikes, he added: “Institutions and structures, however important and valuable, return with new glory and greater strength over time, even if it takes years.”

Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its attacks on Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

The US joined in by launching strikes on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, which Donald Trump said left them “obliterated”, however the exact extent of the damage remains unclear.

Iran denies having a nuclear weapons programme and the UN nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons project.

Over almost two weeks of fighting, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, before a ceasefire began on Tuesday.