Dutch fry cooks survive missile attack in Ukraine

Two Dutchmen who hand out free fries in the war zone in Ukraine survived a missile attack in the eastern city of Kramastorsk on Tuesday. Coen and Franky escaped with some cuts and scrapes. The attack killed at least eight people and left 56 injured, including a child, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Coen and Franky were having dinner at a restaurant in Kramatorsk when the missile struck. “We had just finished eating and had already asked for the bill when suddenly there was a gigantic bang. As part of the restaurant collapsed, and splinters of the glass facade flew in all directions from the air pressure, there was screaming and blood everywhere. Very intense,” Franky van Hintum (54) told AD.

He and Coen tried to get out. “Because everything had collapsed two meters in front of us, we were walking in the wrong direction, as it turned out, in the direction of where the rocket had landed, about 12 meters away. Eventually, we managed to crawl over and under everything to reach the facade and climb through a broken window. I helped a woman with a baby. They also survived,” Franky said.

After getting away from the scene of the attack, the two fry cooks calmed down and checked their injuries. “Coen had a cut on his cheek, and I had a cut on my right arm and hand. Our heads also turned out to be full of tiny glass splinters.”

The two men from Noord-Brabant had planned to make fries and snacks for aid workers in the Bakhmut area on Wednesday, but they decided to head home instead. “Coen does not want to, and we always said: if one of us does not want to, then it stops,” Franky told AD.

According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the missile attack left at least eight people dead and 56 hurt. Minister Klymenko expects to find more victims under the rubble.

The attack occurred in a busy area in the center of Kramastorsk. The city has about 150,000 residents and is the last major conurbation under Ukrainian control in the country's east. It’s located about 30 kilometers from the front.