31-year-old man beaten by Lukashenko’s security forces dies in Minsk
31-year-old Roman Bondarenko died in Minsk after he was beaten by security forces, reports TUT. BY.
On the night of November 12, Roman was taken to the intensive care unit of the Emergency Care Hospital. The doctors operated on him for several hours but could not save him. His sister Olga said that when her mother went to the hospital, she was briefly allowed to see him in intensive care.
Roman was in a coma, connected to several devices, covered in bruises and bandages. At 19:00 the man's condition deteriorated, and the temperature rose to 40C degrees, and at 20:00 his family was informed of his death.
Witnesses said that on Wednesday evening people in civilian clothes and masks came to their yard and began to remove white-red-white ribbons. Roman was one of those who came out to ask what was going on.
One of the security forces pushed him with all his strength and Roman hit his head on on the curb. After that, Roman was detained and taken away in a minibus. He was admitted to the hospital from Minsk Central Police Department with the wording that "he was injured during a fight".
The leader of the Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya expressed her condolences to Roman's relatives on her Telegram channel and said that he was killed by the regime's accomplices.
"He became an innocent victim of an inhumane system that considers people's lives to be the cost of power. We all understand that any peaceful person could have been in his place," the oppositionist stressed.
She promised that Roman's murder would not be forgotten, and his name would be written into the history of the new Belarus as the name of the hero. Tikhanovskaya added that she will continue to fight for those responsible to be punished and that "the life of a person in the Republic of Belarus should be a sacred value, not a subject of sadism over all dissenters."
According to Onliner, people began to gather at the “Place of Change”, a protesters’ gathering place on outskirts of Minsk. They light candles and lay flowers in memory of the deceased Roman Bondarenko. Local residents also held a minute of silence. In different parts of Minsk, people light candles at their windows to honor Roman.