70 dead as Kiev descends into violent chaos
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Fearing that a call for a truce was a ruse, protesters tossed firebombs and advanced upon police lines yesterday in Kiev, Ukraine’s embattled capital. Government snipers shot back and the almost-medieval melee that ensued left at least 70 people dead and hundreds injured.
Video footage on Ukrainian television showed shocking scenes of protesters being cut down by gunfire, lying on the pavement as comrades rushed to their aid. Trying to protect themselves with shields, teams of protesters carried bodies away on sheets of plastic or on planks of wood.
Protesters were also seen leading policemen with their hands held high around the sprawling protest camp in central Kiev. Ukraine’s Interior ministry says 67 police were captured in all. It was not clear how they were taken. An opposition lawmaker said they were being held in Kiev’s occupied city hall.
At least 99 people have died this week in the clashes in Kiev, a sharp reversal in three months of mostly peaceful protests. Now neither side appears willing to compromise, with the opposition insisting on President Viktor Yanukovych’s resignation and an early election, and the president apparently prepared to fight until the end.
Yesterday was the deadliest day yet.
Dr Oleh Musiy, hte top medical coordinator for the protesters, said at least 70 protesters were killed yesterday and over 500 injured, and the death toll could well rise further.
There was no way to immediately verify his statement. Earlier in the day, a reporter for The Associated Press saw 21 bodies laid out on the edge of the capital’s sprawling protest camp.
In addition, one policeman was killed and 28 suffered gunshot wounds, Interior Ministry spokesman Serhiy Burlakov said.
The carnage appears to show that neither Yanukovych nor the opposition leaders appear to be in control of the chaos engulfing Ukraine.
A truce announced late on Wednesday appeared to have little credibility among hardcore protesters at Kiev’s Independence Square campsite. One camp commander, Oleh Mykhnyuk, said that even after the truce, protesters were trowing firebombs at riot police. As the sun rose, police pulled back, the protesters followed them and police then began shooting, he said.
Yanukovych claimed yesterday that police were not armed and “all measures to stop bloodshed and confrontation are being taken.” But the Interior Ministry later contradicted that, saying law enforcers would get weapons as part of an “anti-terrorist” operation.
Some signs emerged that Yanukovych is losing loyalists. The chief of Kiev’s city administration, Volodymyr Makeyenko, announced yesterday he was leaving Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
“We must be guided only by the interests of the people, this is our only chance to save people’s lives,” he said, adding he would continue to fulfill his duties as long as he had the people’s trust.
The parliament building was evacuated yesterday because of fears that protesters would storm it, and the government office and the Foreign Ministry buildings in Kiev were also evacuated.
As the violence exploded and heavy smoke from burning barricades at the encampment rose into the sky, the foreign ministers of three European countries — France, Germany and Poland — met with Yanukovych for five hours after speaking with opposition leaders.
The EU ministers then returned to speak again with opposition leaders.
The EU was to hold an emergency meeting on Ukraine later in the day in Brussels to consider sanctions against those behind the violence, but it was not clear when the three EU ministers would be leaving Kiev.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Twitter that they would also hold talks with the opposition “so as to test proposed agreement,” without elaborating.
Russia blasted the possible sanctions as “bullying” and said President Vladimir Putin was sending a representative to Kiev to act as a mediator in talks with the opposition.
The US State Department has already announced travel bans on about 20 senior government figures over the fighting, which turned deadly despite apparent concessions on both sides earlier this week.
Prior to the deaths and injuries yesterday, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said 28 people have died and 287 have been hospitalized during the two days of street violence.
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