According to AFP, in March 2022, the Russians detained 367 residents of Yagidny, in northern Ukraine, and herded them into the basement of the school, where eleven people died.

“Nothing was explained to us. They took us to the basement and said they would take us somewhere later,” recalled Ivan Polguy, one of the detainees interviewed by AFP on Monday, during a brief ceremony in the village attended by President Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

“I could only go to the toilet. It was worse than in prison,” the 63-year-old man added.

Having failed to capture Kyiv, the Russian army withdrew from the north of the country at the end of March 2022, about a month after the start of its invasion.

“This fear has not left me even today”

Moscow soldiers arrived on March 3, 2022 in this village of approximately 400 residents, located two hours north of Kyiv, Chernihiv region.

“They entered the houses with machine guns and drove everyone into the basements (of the school). We were given five minutes to get everything we needed,” describes his son Valeriy Polguy, 38 years old.

“It all started with crazy fear when they came to us. They broke down our door and broke it,” said another 60-year-old Valentina, who survived, but did not want to give her last name.

“That fear never left me the whole time I was here and for a month afterward,” she continued, still sad.

In total, 367 people were detained and confined for 27 days in the windowless basement of the school, which consisted of one large room and six smaller rooms.

Among them were elderly people and about 50 children, the youngest of whom was only one and a half months old.

“At first it was cold, but then there were more people, and there was not enough oxygen in these rooms (…) Some old people lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen, then went crazy and died,” he continues. Valery Polguy.

“When a person died, (the Russians) did not give permission to bury him. If a person died in the morning, in the afternoon (bodies) could be taken out (…) put in the boiler room,” he explains.

Children were walking near the corpses

“The bodies were lying, and the children were walking (near them). And then, when the bodies of) three/four people were together in the boiler room, we would ask for permission to move them to the cemetery,” he added.

Eleven people died in custody. Their names and dates of death were written on the basement wall and door. The children also made drawings on the walls.

The rooms were furnished with a few chairs and tables for tables, but without beds or mattresses, people slept on the floor on cardboard boxes.

“Many had a fever, children were sick”

“People were leaving, there was dust, it was very difficult to breathe, there was also condensation,” Valentina adds.

According to her, “many had a fever, children were sick.”

“There was nowhere to cook or eat. We organized a kitchen in the yard. There were the remains of a school canteen and a kindergarten. Then someone brought something from home,” Valentina continues.

Their wanderings ended with the arrival of Ukrainian troops on March 30.

“I was still in the basement because everyone was afraid to come out because they didn’t know who was where,” Valeriy recalls. “We were incredibly happy to see them.”

“After seeing this, I want the Russian president to spend the rest of his life in a basement with a bucket instead of a toilet,” Zelenskyy said Monday after visiting the scene with German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck.

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