“We went there after a call about the disruption. It was a massacre. The road was blocked. We were shooting the disruption for as long as we could. I was shooting it until I was hit on the hand in which I was holding my journalist ID that turned out completely useless. My hand is okay, just a broken finger,” the journalist reports.
A lot of injured activists are in hospitals, he says.
The police disrupted protesters along with titushkas, the thugs and athletes hired to beat people, with baseball bats and stun grenades. Then, they chased after people in backyards where protesters ran to hide.
PHOTOS BY YURIY HUDYMENKO
According to another Zaporizhzhia-based journalist, Taras Bilka, the police cracked down on protesters along with the thugs.
“They are shooting at us, throwing stun grenades,” Taras reported. The thugs were wearing white arm bands to make sure they don’t beat each other, while the police was chasing after anyone that wasn’t wearing one, and beating whoever it caught.
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“Strangers would take people home and open doors to those escaping the police,” Taras wrote.
Earlier, protesters arranged a first-aid point for the injured at the Baida movie theatre but the police arranged an ambush there, so people could not deliver the injured there. Neither could they deliver the injured to hospitals.
“Internal troops were severely beating everyone who was on that square, except for titushkas wearing white arm bands. The thugs got in the Baida movie theater where protesters could get warm and get medical aid through the backdoor and beat up those who were inside with bats severely. It was mostly women as men had left to protect the square. The thugs were chasing after people running away, beating them with bats and throwing stun grenades at them. At least 30 people are arrested. Many people are injured. Protesters can’t call a taxi because the drivers are taking anyone who smells of the smoke from the Maidan to police stations. We have to wait. The police is waiting at Hospital No5. That’s where everyone supposedly injured in the protest is delivered,” Taras reported.
