site.btaBulgarians in Odessa Claim to Have Lived Through Four Nightmarish Days

"We have had four terrible and nightmarish days in the past week. Fear, alarms and sirens at night, explosions. Even when the attacks are over and we are informed that there is no danger, we cannot sleep. We live in the Kyiv district, almost next to the apartment block which was damaged on 19 July after the night rocket attack. The blast wave was so strong that a vibration was felt in the whole apartment. We even sent our younger daughter to her grandmother's village in Tarutinskaya municipality, Bolgrad district. It is safer in Bessarabia," Lyudmila Vicheva told BTA. 

She said that for many years her two older sisters have lived in Odessa with their families, as well as her husband's sister. People are very worried about the fact that they do not know what to expect next. "One of my sisters, Larissa, even had panic attacks after the June blasts on Shevchenko Boulevard, they live about 500-600 meters from the site of the missile strike," Lyudmila added.

In the period from 18 to 21 July, Odessa and Odessa region were attacked with missile strikes in the night hours. The sirens started at midnight and ended at 4:00-5:00 am. In total, over 14 sirens were sounded during these four nights and alerts were issued on the official website of the Odessa City Council. 

"As a result of rocket and drone attacks on the territory of Odessa and Odessa region 21 people were injured, 14 of them, including two children, were hospitalized. One person has died," the Odessa City Hall said on its website.

After the attacks, administrative buildings, kindergartens and schools, a church, as well as private houses and blocks of flats in the Ukrainian Black Sea city were hit and destroyed.The infrastructure of the ports of Odessa and Chernomorsk were damaged, as well as a grain storage facility in Teplitsa municipality, Bolgrad district. 

On the night of 22 July, there was no alert declared in Odessa; compared to several previous nights, it was relatively calm.

The Bulgarian community in the Odessa region is the third largest, numbering more than 150,000 people, according to Ukraine's official 2001 census. About 50-60 thousand Bulgarians live in Odessa. The largest compact Bulgarian population is concentrated in the Bolgrad, Izmail and Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy regions.