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As the hospital train sped away from the frontlines of war-torn Ukraine, electrician Evhen Perepelytsia was relieved that he would soon be reunited with his children after nearly losing his life. “We hope that the worst is over — that after what I’ve been though the, it will be better,” the 30-year-old said, swaddled in a grey blanket on a train carriage bed. He was one of 48 wounded and elderly patients evacuated from eastern Ukraine this weekend, arriving in the western city of Lviv Sunday evening after a long overnight journey. The removal was the first from the east since a Russian strike killed 52 people waiting for a train at Kramatorsk’s eastern railway station on Friday.
It was also the fourth such event organised by the medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Perepelytsya told the story of how he lost his leg to shelling in his hometown of Hirske, in the eastern region of Luhansk, inside one of the carriages turned ward-on-wheels.
He was standing outside, and he explained that they had just discussed leaving their home to join their children in the west of the country.
“I took one step forward and fell when I took the second,” he explained.
“It turned out that it hit very close to me, hit a monument, and a fragment of it tore my leg off.”
‘We saved his life,’ he said.
Yuliya, his 29-year-old wife, said she was terrified of losing him while sitting on the end of his bed.
“He passed out twice in the intensive care unit,” she explained.
“We were unable to save his leg, but we were able to save his life.”
She stated that their three children were in Lviv with their grandmother.
“We’re not going back,” she stated emphatically.
According to the UN, at least 1,793 civilians have been killed and 2,439 have been injured since Russia launched its invasion, but the actual figure is likely much higher.
More than ten million people have been displaced from their homes.
Ukrainian authorities have recently urged all residents in the country’s east to flee westwards to safety, fearing that Moscow will unleash its full military force there following setbacks around the capital Kyiv.
As the blue carriages arrived in Lviv, medics helped those who couldn’t walk onto stretchers into waiting ambulances and assisted those who could walk or were in wheelchairs onto buses.
Praskovya, 77, sat patiently on one bus with a large white bandage on her eye and a net over her head to keep it in place.
“My eye hurts,” said the elderly lady from the Luhansk village of Novodruzhesk, who declined to give her second name.
“But the doctors on the train were fantastic,” she added, referring to the 13 staff members on board, the majority of whom were Ukrainian.
