Ukraine war: Inside Kherson’s flood zone, desperate evacuees are fleeing artillery attacks as well as rising waters

Published

2 years ago

June 9, 2023

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There are several possible war crimes playing out in real-time in southern Ukraine and the world is watching as the tragedy unfolds, following the destruction of a major dam.

We were at one of the flood evacuation points in Kherson when it came under attack – targeting those just rescued; the rescuers; the relief teams and the journalists covering the emergency.

There was immediate panic as everyone rushed to take cover – scattering against walls, running downstairs to basements and cowering in doorways.

“Everyone move!”, a volunteer shouted to his team. “Prepare to pack up.”

Panic at flood evacuation point – live updates

As they scrambled to carry cages filled with bedraggled, sodden animals to safety, and break down and pack up their temporary food and water shelters, the attacks kept coming in – an artillery barrage and rockets levelled at aid workers, as well as the scared and the desperate who they were caring for.

We saw two volunteers trying to carry one of their few dinghies being used in the rescue efforts – before dropping it and running as another rocket screamed overhead.

Hours earlier, the Ukrainian leader visited one of the evacuation points in Kherson to support the relief effort.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already urged global leaders to do more to rally around and help, castigating the international organisations for what he deems as their sluggish response.

‘I’m not afraid of anything anymore’

The same evacuation point came under repeated attack after he left.

We were given footage filmed by one soldier as they took an injured civilian to safety on a stretcher.

Frail old women were shepherded to shelter along walls as the ominous sounds of an artillery barrage rumbled on.

But 74-year-old Larissa brushed it all off.

“They bombed my apartment before new year,” she told us. “We’ve been through it all. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.”

The first flooding deaths are now being reported.

Tragically, they will not be the last.

Ukrainian media said three people had died in the Kherson region as a result of flooding.

But the Ukrainian president has pointed out it is “impossible to predict how many people will die” in the Russian-controlled areas of Kherson.

Reports from those who have managed to flee from there to the Ukrainian side told us the Russian troops appeared as shocked as they were at the dam explosion and subsequent floods.

They said the Russian troops told them they expected to be evacuated.

But when that didn’t happen, the residents saw some of the Russian troops swimming to get away.

Tearful reunions interrupted by attacks

A family of six, including two children and a kitten, wept with relief at being reunited with their relatives on the Ukrainian-held side of Kherson.

They told of sheltering in the loft of their home in the Russian-occupied village of Kardashynka until their whole house started crumbling as the waters kept rising.

“You’re home. You’re home,” their waiting relative said repeatedly as she hugged them over and over.

The family thought they had fled to safety in Ukrainian territory – surviving shelling, the flood zone and currents to make it to the other side.

But a short time later, all those newly rescued, as well as those trying to help them, came under multiple and random attacks.

This is a war zone.

The waters have washed over entire areas of the battlefield.

The Ukrainian rescue operation is going on in the midst of artillery fire and shelling – and the threat of mines.

We’ve spent the last few days since the Nova Kakhova dam burst – and sent a torrent of water cascading either side of the Dnipro river – witnessing the devastation and desperation it has already wrought on humans, animals and the landscape.

The Ukrainian president says there may be about 100 communities, villages and towns, including Kherson city, affected.

Aerial pictures taken from several drones show huge swathes of what were once residential areas now underwater – covered in sewage and debris, mixed with chemicals and toxins and there are reports of oil too.

President Zelenskyy first described it as “ecocide” – then an environmental bomb of mass destruction.

He may well be underestimating the massive effect this is going to have on the land, countryside and people.

A horrifyingly slow misery

It’s actually difficult to overstate just how much of a tragedy this is – and the full scale of what’s happened will probably not be felt or even properly assessed for some time.

Immediately though, right in front of us, on an hourly basis, we are seeing the human and animal suffering and cost.

But it’s a slow, drawn-out misery.

Depressingly, horrifyingly slow.

The steady filling-up of streets is even taking the residents by surprise.

The waters keep rising – for the first 12 or so hours by 10-12cm per hour.

By yesterday, that had slowed to 1-2cm an hour.

The waters are expected to stay high for another four to five days, though.

And the average flood level of the water is about 5.6 metres (about 18ft), according to the governor of Kherson Oblast.

That’s enough to cover the tops of street signs and reach the tip of roofs.

The residents have been living in areas where the rumble of artillery and mortar firing, of explosions and shells dropping, has been a constant, frightening, deadly backdrop.

And those who have stuck it out, those who have resolutely refused to be pushed out by the fighting and war – and then refused to budge because of the flooding – are now coming under fire as they finally give up their homes to the rising waters.

We saw videos filmed by the rescuers themselves showing the waters around them punctured by artillery strikes throwing huge showers of water into the air as they tried to keep their balance on tiny dinghies, clutching to still-visible rooftops peeking out from the waters.

It’s difficult to imagine it getting much more frightening or miserable for these people.

Alex Crawford is reporting from Kherson, with cameraman Jake Britton and producers Chris Cunningham and Artem Lysak

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

11 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

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Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

23 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.