Who are the three Colombians who survived the bombing of a restaurant in Ukraine (and what is known about the attack so far)

At around 7:30 p.m. this Tuesday, a rocket hit the premises of the RIA Pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk, where dozens of people were gathered.

According to Ukrainian authorities, the attack left at least ten dead and another 40 injured, including several Colombians: the writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, the journalist Catalina Gómez Ángel and the former peace commissioner Sergio Jaramillo, who suffered minor injuries.

The city is barely 30 kilometers from the front line.

Three young men were killed in the incident. including 14-year-old twins, Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko:

In a Telegram post, the municipal government expressed its condolences to the girls’ parents, saying that “a Russian missile stopped the heartbeats of two angels”.

The RIA Pizza restaurant was known as a meeting place for international media correspondents covering the conflict.

Arnaud DeDecker, Belgian journalist, told the BBC there were at least 80 people in the restaurant, many of them journalists.

“I left shortly before the missile hit. When I went back to see what had happened, I found the place destroyed and I began to hear the screams of the people buried under the rubble.”

Along with the three Colombians was the famous Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who, according to Jaramillo’s testimony, suffered a skull injury and is in critical condition.

Who are the Colombians?

Abad Faciolince and Jaramillo were in the Ukrainian city collecting testimonies as part of a campaign called “Hold on, Ukraine!”, which aims to show Latin America’s support for the country at war.

For its part, Gómez, an experienced journalist in Tehran, is in Ukraine to report on the conflict for various international networks.

Gómez has been working as a journalist specialized in the Middle East for more than ten years for international media such as France 24 and DW. He has also made important collaborations for BBC Mundo.

she worked on it Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Gaza, Nepal, Mexico and since 2011 she lives in Iran, where she has been able to closely follow the veil revolution that has been going on since last year.

But he has also spent much of the past few months covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“One minute you’re drinking a glass of water and the next, hell #Kramatorsk,” Angel wrote on his Twitter account about what happened on Tuesday.

Gómez told BBC Mundo she was unharmed in the attack.

Abad and Jaramillo, a campaign for Ukraine

Another Colombian who was in the place is the famous writer Héctor Abad Faciolince.

Born in Medellín, Faciolince has received wide international recognition for his book “The Oblivion We Shall Be”who recounts his relationship with his father, the doctor Héctor Abad Gómez, who was killed by paramilitaries in 1987.

Faciolince has written several novels and is also a columnist for El Espectador newspaper.

According to various reports, he is the most read and sold writer in Colombia after Gabriel García Márquez.

Next to him sat Sergio Jaramillo, who was High Commissioner for Peace of Colombia during the negotiations that led to the signing of the peace agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government in 2016.

Jaramillo was responsible for the secret rapprochement that took place between 2010 and 2012 between the government of then-President Juan Manuel Santos and the leadership of the guerrilla group, which led to the start of peace talks in 2012 and the subsequent signing of the accord in 2016. .

“They almost killed us. We suffered only minor injuries,” Jaramillo told the BBC.

And he added that his main concern is Amelina, who was with them and is now in serious condition.

“She is fighting for her life. His condition is critical. I ask that we pray for her,” he said.

Both Abad and Jaramillo have worked on the “Hold On, Ukraine!” campaign..

Gómez Ángel had even published on his social networks the meeting between Abad and the Ukrainian writer as part of the efforts to seek testimonials about what has happened in the country since the Russian invasion began in early 2022.

“The violence and the embrace that unites us. A writer who tells about the murder of his father in #Colombia and a bookseller who lived through the Russian occupation in the city of Kapytolivka #Ukraine where the writer Volodymyr Vakulenko was kidnapped,” Gómez said with a photo of the meeting between Abad and Amelina.

Sentence

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, saying Russia’s only way out is “defeat and a court”.

“Russia only deserves defeat and a court, a fair and legitimate court against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Several media have pointed out that this is the second attack with the highest number of civilian deaths in 2023, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began early last year.

forks the second attack of the city of Kramatorsklocated about 250 kilometers east of Kiev, since the beginning of the conflict.

At least 63 people, including several children, were killed last year when Russian short-range missiles hit the city’s train station.