Too Late

We were contacted by a lady, she  told us her elderly mother was living on her own in East Bakhmut and that  she had not been able to contact her for some weeks. The elderly lady had mental health issues and the daughter was very worried about her mother's  health. East Bakhmut is under heavy fire and attack from the russians we have seen heavy shelling and Jets flying over while on the east side. The lady understood that the location was difficult to reach. (House was 1.5k from russian position on the outskirts of the town leaving it open to line of sight of the russians) also the only access  across is via the military pontoon bridge which is being targeted.

We made it across to the area but we could not locate the house. The street name we were given did not exist on any mapping device and we asked 2 different locals whom stated they had never heard of that address. This has happened multiple times. Due to decommunization in Ukraine many street name and village names have been changed to remove russian attachment. But many elderly people still use the "old" names and will give us these names as their address which can prove difficult. In these villages, most  people have already left  or are in hiding from the shelling we cant just knock on doors and ask directions. As the area was under shelling and we had tried our best we left the area on continued on with our next request. Later when we had network coverage we contacted the daughter and asked for specific directions or landmarks we could use the street name was no good. The following day while back in Bakhmut the front wheel of our 4x4 fell off. From all the heavy road conditions and crossing over the the east and back the bolts holding on the wheel snapped. Vehicle was down and we needed to be evacuated ourselves.

2 Days later we informed the daughter  that we were back on the road. First task was to locate her mother. She told us we might have to break a door or window as her mother was also hard of hearing but the main focus was to evacuate her mother. As we approached the house we were spotted by a russian drone. We hide the vehicles as best we could and went on foot to her mothers house. as we entered we noticed a body lying on the floor just inside the front door. The lady was dead. She had died within 2 days approx. As we stood over the body we had direct impacts to the house we took cover in the house waiting for a pause. We covered the body as best we could with blankets and when we got or chance we ran to our vehicles. As we drove we had impacts within 50m of the road, we were being tracked.

We made it safely out of the area and made contact with the daughter and informed her that her mother had passed away. She was not injured or killed by shelling. The elderly lady had died of natural causes due to her health issues, lack of medications, lack of medical treatment, No Food and Water????

The daughter asked if we could go back and extract the body. Understanding that this only natural that she would like to bury her mother and to know her body is not still out there in those harsh conditions we agreed to go back and retrieve the body. We called into the military hospital in Bakhmut and asked for body bags, when the guy asked "just one or more?" I said "more,I think we will need them."  We retrieved the body of the elderly lady and arranged to deliver to a funeral service in Kramatorsk where the daughter could collect the body and make arrangements for a funeral.

As the winter hits I do believe we will be finding more and more bodies when we enter houses. The people want to stay but their houses are damaged, they have no food or water, no heat and under heavy attacks form the russians. Winter is harsh in Ukraine and  people might not be afraid of the russians but the cold will kill them just as quick.