Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina dies of wounds sustained during Russian bombing of Kramatorsk | International

The Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, 37, is the 13th victim of last Tuesday’s Russian attack in Kramatorsk (eastern Donetsk region). The perpetrator, who was added to the list of over 60 injured, died late Saturday evening from head injuries suffered following the impact of a missile on the famous Ria restaurant. Among the deceased are three minors, two were 14-year-old twins. A day before the writer’s death, the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, paid tribute to her during his third visit to Kiev. “We need women like her to write history,” Sánchez said in a speech before Ukraine’s parliament on Saturday.

“It is with our greatest sadness that we inform you that the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1 in the Mechnikov hospital in Dnipro”, says the statement. “We are announcing this news now, when all members of Victoria’s family have found out and with their consent,” he adds to explain the time that elapsed between the death and the announcement.

Amelina was the author of children’s books and two novels, but in the shadow of the Great Russian Invasion that launched in February 2022, she left fiction behind and focused on investigating war crimes. Her accolades include awards such as the Joseph Conrad or being a finalist for the European Union Prize for Literature. Her novel has just been translated into Spain A house for Dom (Observer).

The writer’s presence in Kramatorsk was almost accidental. He had embarked at the last minute on a journey with the Colombians Héctor Abad Faciolince, writer; Sergio Jaramillo, former peace commissioner in that country, and journalist Catalina Gómez. They had left Kiev first for the Kharkov region and then for the Donetsk region. In Kharkov they had the opportunity to get acquainted with the case of the local writer Volodimir Vakulenko. During last year’s Russian occupation, Vakulenko decided to bury his diaries in the garden of his house in the village of Kapitolivka, near the city of Izium. Shortly thereafter he was murdered by the invaders and his body was transferred to a mass grave. Amelina discovered his manuscripts and brought to light what happened, another atrocity committed by the Russians in Ukraine.

The writer met Abad and Jaramillo on the weekend before the Kramatorsk bombing at an event at the Kiev book fair. Both had come to present the Hold Ukraine campaign in solidarity of Latin America with the people of Ukraine. For this reason, almost on the fly, he decided to accompany them together with Gómez, who also had solid experience during the armed conflict in that area of ​​the country.

He Amelina’s last tweet dates back to the same Tuesday as the bombing. In it, Abad is photographed holding the Ukrainian edition of his famous book The oblivion that we will be, in which he reflects on the assassination of his father, in 1987, a well-known doctor, professor and human rights activist. The image, in which she embraces a bookseller named Yulia, was taken in Kapitolivka, a place that Victoria Amelina wanted the Colombian delegation to visit. “It’s like a hug of solidarity from Latin America to Ukraine,” wrote the novelist together with the slogan Hold on Ukraine.

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During a conversation with EL PAÍS, Abad himself recalled the symbolic conversation he had with Amelina in the garden of Vakulenko’s house. “This has been a testimonial journey and, suddenly, it has become a tragic journey in which our colleague Victoria Amelina finds herself between life and death. And we, sad and dismayed, go back where we can… Where everything seems perfect,” lamented the Colombian writer and journalist. The explosion broke a moment of laughter in which the group, seated at a table in the restaurant, joked about curfew times and the dry law that prohibits drinking alcohol. “I don’t know if I’ll see Victoria’s face again amidst that beer laughter,” Abad reflected painedly. Hours later, he still couldn’t understand: “Because we were fine and she wasn’t.” Apart from the bruises, none of the group, including Dima, the driver, suffered any injuries, with the exception of Amelina.

“On 27 June 2023 Russia committed another war crime by sending an Iskander missile with a highly explosive warhead into the Ria restaurant” and “among those seriously injured in this crime is our dear colleague Victoria Amelina: a brilliant writer and world-renowned and award-winning human rights activist”. Organizations PEN Ukraine reported three days after the attack and Truth Hounds, which investigates war crimes. Amelina was part of both.

“This is a roulette wheel where one chip falls and others don’t. It’s horrible to be like this, to have to live in a world where these things happen, but you have to bear witness and resist», defended Hector Abad as he walked away from the “hell” of Donetsk, while doctors treated to save Amelina’s life. The writer was transferred by ambulance on Wednesday from hospital number three in Kramatorsk to a more equipped one in the city of Dnipro. He remained in a coma until his death.

“I don’t think that the law and human rights are fields reserved for people with titles. The law is ultimately concerned with human beings, or at least it should have people at its core; This is what makes law similar to literature.” explained in April to the newspaper Independent Kyiv. And in the wake of that thought, the following month, Amelina joined the trip in which Abad and Jaramillo wanted to get closer to those victims who were the object of their solidarity campaign.

The Ria restaurant, as this special envoy was able to verify four days before the bombing, is a place very popular with journalists, humanitarian workers, volunteers from various organizations and the military. It is in no way a military infrastructure, as Russia claimed to justify the attack.

Kramatorsk had already been the site of a brutal Russian attack on April 8 last year against civilians who were being evacuated from the railway station to other safer regions of the country. The victims amount to 59.

Ukrainian authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of a city resident they consider a pro-Russian agent. They claim that on the same day of the attack he recorded a video of the Ria restaurant and its surroundings before sending it to the Russian authorities. “Anyone who helps Russian terrorists destroy lives deserves the greatest punishment,” said Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.

This is the panorama that Victoria Amelina left painted on June 24: “At night I watched the fireballs in the sky from my balcony in Kiev and listened to the explosions. I went to sleep without checking the news. War is when you can no longer follow all the news and grieve for all the neighbors who died in your place within a couple of miles. However, I don’t want to forget to learn the names.”

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