Nurse told of ‘chilling’ abuse by Russian army
Civilians in recently liberated towns struggle to talk about the abuse they faced at the hands of the Russian army, but their stories are ‘‘chilling’’, a Kiwi nurse in Ukraine says.
Maia Blenkinsop, 41, is working in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv for Me´decins Sans Frontie`res (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, where she’s providing healthcare to Ukrainians who lived under Russian occupation.
A month ago, the Queenstown nurse was on a backcountry skiing trip. Now her small team has to avoid Russian artillery shells while providing muchneeded health support to victims of President Vladimir Putin’s war.
Russia invaded Kharkiv on the first day of the war in February and was booted from the region in the middle of September.
Many people, including doctors and nurses, fled the rural villages, but mostly elderly ladies and the immobile stayed behind and had no healthcare access for nine months.
‘‘We’re seeing blood pressures that I would normally . . . If I was in Auckland Hospital or Queenstown Hospital, this person we would send to hospital.’’
Now the villages that might only have a fifth of the prewar population need health support, and the nurse with 17 years of experience is part of a mobile clinic team that goes to them.
Even after the Russians retreated, there are still bridges and roads destroyed and mines on the roads and in the fields, preventing villagers from easily moving to where healthcare remains. As the Ukrainian army has liberated areas, stories have emerged of the occupied people facing torture chambers and extra-judicial killings.
Blenkinsop said it was difficult for those who lived under occupation to speak of what happened to them because of a deep grief.
‘‘We hear a lot of stories from people, but people don’t want to fully tell us stuff,’’ she said.
‘‘They start to tell us a story and then they kind of clam up.
‘‘Once people do start talking, they tell you about being held at gunpoint, being stripped naked, being forced outside and lined up on a wall . . . There’s a lot of chilling stories that I’ve heard.’’
Her small team includes a psychologist whose job is to assist with people’s trauma.
In addition, Blenkinsop – who speaks Russian, as her grandmother is Ukrainian – mucks in and tries to make do.
‘‘People just can’t believe how horrible it was. They were living in a peaceful area . . . and then a war started and a lot of them say: I just can’t believe this has happened.’’
At night, Blenkinsop sleeps in a hotel in Kharkiv city with sandbags over the windows.
During the day, her team will visit the countryside villages, at
times going near the front line. ‘‘There’s days we don’t go out because there is shelling,’’ she said.
MSF has a rigorous security arrangement for its staff because they are near a war zone, but the biggest threat was mines, Blenkinsop said.
As a result, her team has to travel on paved roads and on paths that locals know are not mined, which can mean they sometimes spend as much time travelling as they do providing healthcare in a 12-hour day.
Winter has already hit the European steppe and now thick snow threatens to compound all the health problems with a freezing cold.
‘‘What people are telling us is that people are heating their houses with firewood . . . But one elderly gentleman told us the other day he almost stepped on a mine going to get firewood,’’ Blenkinsop said.
Despite the bleakness of war, she said infrastructure that was bombed by the Russians was being quickly rebuilt.
‘‘It’s really inspiring. It’s a really hopeful situation,’’ she said.