The China Mail - Emotional reunion for escapees from 'liberated' Irpin

They had no idea whether 86-year-old Olga Molchanova would be among the final residents being evacuated from the devastated commuter town of Irpin.

But her husband Mykola, 81, is still in Irpin, declaring that "he'd rather die there, handicapped with crutches," her daughter Agnesa Brovkina said.

Olga left hours before Ukraine's interior minister said that Irpin had been "liberated" from Russian forces but that the town remained dangerous.

AFP journalists said heavy shelling continued late Monday on the road leading to Irpin, with some 20 loud explosions in the forest next to the highway.

"I just pray to God for salvation. I pray every day for the soldiers who defend us. Let them have courage," Molchanova cried, wringing her hands.

Molchanova raises her hand to her ear when anyone speaks to her, and her daughter explains that a month of fighting since Russia's invasion has ruined her hearing.

"My mother was deafened by a rocket. All the time, non-stop, shelling. All day and night, bombing, shelling, all of it," said Brovkina, a 62-year-old office worker.

"They want to destroy Irpin".

- 'Crushed by tanks' -

Most people have already fled the once quiet suburban town on the strategic northwestern entrance to Kyiv, leaving mainly the elderly and the sick to endure nearly a month of Russian bombardment.

After crossing a broken bridge across a river, the escapees are taken in ambulances to a dusty evacuation centre on the outskirts of Kyiv.

They have endured hellish conditions, but at least they survived.

"We saw those cars which tried to get out on their own, they were crushed by tanks, with people inside," said Olga's son Roman Molchanov, 55, his voice cracking with emotion.

His sister added that the "Russian orcs" had "shot dead people sitting in their cars."

The siblings fled Irpin when Russia opened a "humanitarian corridor" on March 8 but their parents refused to leave with them.

They've been trying to get them out ever since.

Most of those emerging from the ambulances that come from Irpin are elderly people, clutching their meagre belongings, but not all.

Ten-year-old Misha Romanenko holds his little dog for comfort after he escaped with his parents. An aid worker hands him a chocolate bar.

"It is important that I don’t cry in front of him, then he holds up" says his mother Yelena Moisak, 41.

They had been depending on a well in their yard for water for days, and decided on Monday to finally flee on foot, before the military picked them up.

- 'Incoming' -

The future for them remains uncertain, despite Ukraine's claims to be making gains in several areas as it pushes back Russia's stalled advance on the capital.

Ukraine's interior minister said late Monday that Irpin had been "liberated" -- echoing earlier comments by the town's mayor -- but it remained too dangerous to return to because "a sweep is going on completely through the streets" by security forces.

Fighting was still going on when the mayor made his announcement just before sunset.

"That’s incoming," one of a group of Ukrainian soldiers said as they leant against a Humvee after several nearby shell explosions.

"We’re still waiting" for confirmation that the town is fully under Ukrainian control, he said, adding that anyone going further did so at their own risk.

X.So--ThChM