Tragic and horrific scenes in war-torn Ukraine were witnessed first hand by Dumfriesshire MP David Mundell last week.
He was given the insight as a guest of the Thornhill-based HALO Trust and has praised the de-mining missions that are saving lives in the area.
Mr Mundell has been supporting the region’s efforts to help fleeing refugees and those settling into Dumfries and Galloway since the Russian invasion.
And he was keen to see the situation for himself, describing the work of the HALO Trust teams putting their own lives on the line so residents can return to liberated towns and villages as “brave and inspiring”.
Among the most harrowing was a visit to a school in the town of Bucha, close to Kyiv, where many atrocities took place under Russian occupancy, including the murder of 460 people.
Mr Mundell said: “We had an emotional meeting with the head teacher of the school and heard of efforts to get it back up and running so that pupils had some opportunity for face-to-face learning.
“It was a sobering experience to visit the bomb shelters which are an inevitable requirement of the school being open.
“We witnessed pupils learning from the HALO team about how to avoid detonating mines.
“I was extremely impressed by the interactive discussion with the pupils and how engaged they were.
“Given all the turmoil and tragedy they had experienced, the resilience of these young people will be something I will never forget.”
He also got to spend time with the town mayor’s team and said: “The one message they wanted me to convey to people here in Dumfriesshire, and across the UK, was their gratitude for all the help and assistance this country has been able to give to Ukraine and how important it was to know that they were not alone in their hour of need.”
Mr Mundell was shown some of the horrors of the occupation of Bucha featured in an exhibition put together since the invasion force left – from civilians being shot in the streets to children coming under enemy fire in cars trying to escape along ‘safe routes’.
He said: “The exhibition organiser described how she had to hide in her basement while the Russians looted her home above.
“It was a truly awful experience for those in this community but they are determined not to give in to the Russians and want what has happened to make them stronger as a community and a country.”
The MP revealed that as he was leaving the town, he and the HALO team were told of more killings of civilians in the east of the country.
He said: “Putin made his declaration that the areas he had occupied were going to be annexed into Russia, which, of course, the fee world cannot accept.
“That is why continued support of Ukraine is so important at every level.
“What HALO, who operate worldwide, are doing is a vital part of that support by allowing people to go back safely to areas that were occupied and to help bring, to an extent, a degree of normality to their lives.
“The very fact that they can do this is a repudiation of everything that Putin stands for and a demonstration that he cannot, and will not, win.”
Mr Mundell’s journey to Ukraine involved travelling from Kraków, in Poland, by car to Lviv and then an 11-hour overnight train to Kyiv.
Just a few miles outside the city he witnessed “the devastation that the Russians have wreaked, with bombed-out buildings and walls scarred by bullet holes”.
In the village of Zalissia, he was shown where Russians booby-trapped nearby woodlands and dug trenches during their occupation.
He said: “They used very thin wire or plastic thread to attach to their mines which violently explode if disturbed.
“One person had already been killed in this neighbourhood while walking in the woods.
“We saw first-hand the vital work that HALO do to find the tripwires and the mines, which requires meticulous skill with great concentration and dexterity.
“It is a very hard and dangerous job, especially as the mines are laid in a way to cause maximum harm.”
He was also told of how mines were laid underneath one another so that the second one goes off whilst the first one is being diffused and how the hidden mines have taken the lives of many adults who went into the woods looking for mushrooms – a foraging tradition at this time of year.
HALO is training more than a 100 new-starts there and is also providing education to local people in the areas which have been mined to help protect themselves.
“They demonstrate patience and great concentration whilst placing their lives at risk to help others.”
