11:23 BST
Joel Gunter
Reporting from Kyiv
As of last month, roughly 2,500 civilians
were left in the small town Bilopillia in the far north of Sumy – down from nearly 16,000 before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
That number has dropped again as Russian air attacks on the village, just 7km (4.3 miles) from the Russian border, have intensified over the past few days.
Three people were killed in
Bilopillia and a neighbouring village, Vorozhba, in Russian attacks last night.
“Yesterday 15 aerial bombs
hit Bilopillia,” says Denys Naumov, 32, a volunteer emergency worker with
humanitarian aid organisation Proliska, who has been driving in and out of the
village to evacuate civilians.
“The tempo of attacks is
increasing,” Naumov says. “People no longer have time to pack their things,
they grab what they can and we take them out.”
The evacuees are taken to
the nearby city of Sumy, which offers greater protection from Russian strikes
than the border villages. Sumy itself, however, was hit over Easter by a devastating
strike.
Naumov says he expects to return later today to rescue more people from Bilopillia, despite the
persistent danger.
“God willing, I return,” he
says.