On video | “That infernal noise threw me to the ground”: this is how Héctor Abad and Sergio Jaramillo saved themselves from an attack in Ukraine

2023-06-29 05:29:37

It all happened in a matter of seconds, the time it takes two bottles of non-alcoholic beer to collide when those who drink it toast for any reason. The sharp blow broke everything and, according to what the former peace commissioner Sergio Jaramillo and the Antioquia novelist Héctor Abad Faciolince told, they were able to tell that they survived an attack with Russian missiles in a Ukrainian city because, as they said, fate sat them on the terrace of the restaurant hit by the rocket.

In fact, according to the two Colombians who escaped the bloody attack on a civilian center in the city of Kramatorsk –in which 10 people died and at least 40 were injured–, one of their companions, the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, He suffered a severe blow to the never for which, according to medical reports, he ended up in intensive care.

“She was sitting upright and that is why some sharp object hit her back very hard. She is in intensive care and I am here talking to you,” Jaramillo said in the middle of an Instagram Live that, together with Abad, he did from Kiev – the capital of Ukraine – 24 hours after that attack perpetrated on Tuesday night.

In that same space, already with the medical reassurance that they did not suffer serious injuries, Abad recounted in a broken voice how the toast they made with a non-alcoholic drink – in the region there is a sect law for being close to the Donbas war front – derived in tragedy. The impact of his bottles coincided with the fall of the missile.

“Glass fell and I moved and did not know what was happening. He was stunned and tried to get me up in the stupor, but everyone told me that he was hurt. And Catalina apologized for taking me to that place. And suddenly I see Victoria sitting, with her head very straight, with her head thrown back a little, but sitting and clean, without blood, spotless, but with her eyes closed. And she did not respond, ”said the Paisa writer.

The Catalina he is referring to is Catalina Gómez Ángel, the Colombian war correspondent with whom they shared a table and who also survived the attack. In a report after that bloody episode, made for the France 24 channel, this journalist even recounted the horror she experienced.

“This is one of the most important restaurants in the city. It was a little after 7 pm (Ukrainian time) when a missile hit exactly that restaurant, which was absolutely full. What you see are scenes of terror, we have seen injuries, some very serious. (…) We really are alive by a miracle,” said Gómez.

The four of them were chatting at one of the outdoor tables of the RAI Pizza pizzeria, as the place attacked is called and which was frequented by war correspondents. Among the 10 dead there are minors and all the deceased were inside the premises.

“I looked at Hector, who was lying on all 4 legs on the floor and had some stains that looked like blood, but in reality we are not very clear why he ended up stained everywhere. He was not hurt,” Jaramillo recounted.

And Abad continued: “I felt that something sprouted from the center of the earth that, instead of pulling me up, that infernal noise threw me to the ground.”

This Wednesday, 24 hours after the attack, the Jaramillos and Abads were already in Kiev, while Catalina Gómez continued in the Kramastorsk area and, according to official reports, left for another hospital in a Doctors Without Borders ambulance accompanying Victoria Amelina.

See here on video the statements of Héctor Abad Faciolince and Sergio Jaramillo:

While these Colombians almost lost their lives in one of the many attacks that Russia has carried out for a year and a half that, at the instruction of Vladimir Putin, decided to invade Ukraine, President Gustavo Petro spoke on social networks and said that his Foreign Ministry will raise a protest note to Moscow for solidarity with the three compatriots.

Of course, head-on – which everyone is demanding – still neither he nor his government condemn an ​​invasion that the Kremlin has been holding for a year in the territory of another country.