Page 5 - aruba-today-20230809

A5
WORLD NEWS Wednesday 9 august 2023

Ukraine accuses Russia of targeting rescue workers with

consecutive missile strikes

By Hanna Arhirova — they needed to react,
Associated Press to dig, to retrieve, to save.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrai- And the enemy deliberate-
nian officials on Tuesday ly struck the second time.”
accused the Kremlin’s Russia’s Ministry of Defense
forces of targeting rescue claimed it hit a Ukrainian
workers by hitting residen- army command post in
tial buildings with two con- Pokrovsk. Neither side’s
secutive missiles — the first claims could be indepen-
one to draw crews to the dently verified.
scene and the second one Arriving at the scene after
to wound or kill them. the first missile strike, Nikulin
The strikes Monday evening was wounded in the sec-
in the downtown district of ond strike when shrapnel
the city of Pokrovsk killed at pierced his left lung and left
least seven people, includ- hand.
ing an emergency official, “Today is not my happy
and wounded more than day because Russian crimi-
80 others, most of them nals committed another
police officers, emergency awful crime in Pokrovsk,”
workers and soldiers who he said in a video he sent
rushed to assist residents, to The Associated Press
Ukrainian officials said. from a hospital ward.
The Russian missiles In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, people carry a wounded person from In the video, he is seen ly-
slammed into the center a damaged building after Russian missile strikes in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Monday, ing on a bed shirtless, with
of Pokrovsk in the eastern Aug. 7, 2023. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP Photo) dried blood on his side and
Donetsk region, which is covering his left hand. He
partially occupied by Rus- of each other, accord- later, often hitting emer- there because they were moves with pain to show his
sia. Emergency crews were ing to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo gency teams responding needed, putting their ef- wounds.
still removing rubble on Kyrylenko said. to the first blast. The tactic forts into rescuing people Pointing his camera to
Tuesday. The Iskander mis- Since the start of the war, is called a “double tap” after the first strike,” Ivan show other wounded secu-
siles, which have an ad- Russia has used artillery and in military jargon. Russians Vyhivskyi, chief of Ukraine’s rity forces in the ward, he
vanced guidance system missiles to hit targets and used the same method in National Police, said Tues- says: “Look, these are Ukrai-
that increases their accu- then struck the exact same Syria’s civil war. day. “They knew that under nian heroes who helped
racy, hit within 40 minutes spot around 30 minutes “All of (the police) were the rubble were the injured (injured) people.”q

Germany receives 178 compensation applications from gay

servicepeople over discrimination

paid in symbolic compen- soldiers in the Bundeswehr just as much a part of this
sation, the ministry said. at the time the study was as the explicit admission by
The law was passed in presented. the Bundeswehr that injus-
2021 after a study com- The study found that tice was done to those af-
missioned by the defense “same-sex orientation was fected at the time.”
ministry and presented in viewed as a security risk in In recent years, Germany
2020 documented “sys- the Bundeswehr until the has tried to address past
tematic discrimination” turn of the millennium and anti-gay discrimination in
in the Bundeswehr — the made a career as an of- different ways. In 2017, par-
military of West Germany ficer or noncommissioned liament voted to annul the
and since 1990 of reunited officer impossible.” convictions of thousands
Germany — from 1955 un- In the past, soldiers were of gay men under a law
til the beginning of the 21st punished by military courts criminalizing male homo-
century. for consensual gay sex, dis- sexuality that was enforced
Soldiers of the honor guard prepare for a military welcome While the German military missed, denied promotion zealously in post-World War
ceremony as part of a meeting of German Defence Minister stopped its policy of dis- or stripped of responsibility. II West Germany.
Ursula von der Leyen and her counterpart from Great Britain crimination against gay In its report on Tuesday, Legislation criminalizing
Michael Fallon, in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2014. soldiers in 2000, it took more the defense ministry wrote male homosexuality was
(AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
than two decades to pass that “the reconciliation of introduced in the 19th cen-
By Kirsten Grieshaber in a statement that it had the law offering them com- the affected soldiers with tury, toughened under Nazi
Associated Press expected more applica- pensation. the Bundeswehr cannot rule and retained in that
BERLIN (AP) — The German tions, but that nonetheless The law also offers com- be measured solely by the form by democratic West
defense ministry said Tues- “the goals of the law were pensation for gay soldiers number of successful reha- Germany, which convicted
day that it has received 178 achieved.” A law rehabili- who served in East Ger- bilitation proceedings and about 50,000 men between
applications for compen- tating gay soldiers who suf- many's National People's the associated payments.” 1949 and 1969. Homosexu-
sation from gay service- fered discrimination came Army until Germany's unifi- It stressed that in addition, ality was decriminalized
people who experienced into force two years ago, cation in 1990. The defense “individual, appreciative in 1969 but the legislation
discrimination in the military and so far, about 400,000 minister apologized for the communication and com- wasn’t taken off the books
in the past. The ministry said euros ($438,000) has been discrimination against gay radely attention are also entirely until 1994.q