site.btaHundreds Come to Pay Last Respects to Bessarabian Bulgarian's Wife and Child Killed in Russian Drone Attack in Odesa

Hundreds came to pay their last respects to the wife and four-month-old baby of a Bessarabian Bulgarian man, who were killed in a Russian drone attack in Odesa on March 2.  The attack killed 10 others, according to the local authorities.

The story about the loss of Sergei Haydarzhi touched deeply people in Bulgaria after it was told by BTA and taken up by many media outlet.

In his eulogy, Haydarzhi said that when the drones struck, he was with his 5-year-old daughter in one room and his wife Anya and the baby were sleeping in another room. “Every night I would put Liza to sleep and then Anya would call me and I would join her and the baby. Last night she was not there to call my name,” the devastated man said.

His consolation is that according to the post mortem the mother and baby died in their sleep.

Odesa Deputy Mayor Svetlana Bedrega said that the city lost 12 people on that night, among them five children. “We haven’t had such a tragedy in Odesa in the two years since the start of the war,” she said.

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