‘TRYING TO HOLD ON’

Husband of Slain Ukraine Family Says ‘Beloved’ Wife Is Still on Floor of Overflowing Morgue

A photo of Sergei Perebyinis’ fleeing wife and kids dead in the street horrified the world.

The husband of Tetiana Perebyinis—whose death alongside her two children in Irpin was captured in a horrific photo by The New York Times Monday—returned to Kyiv Wednesday to bury his family. “Trying to hold on but it’s really hard,” Sergei Perebyinis posted on Facebook. “Fourth day on my feet, thousands of kilometers of road.” According to Perebyinis, funerals for his family were postponed because of the magnitude of civilian deaths in Kyiv. She is “lying in a black bag on the floor,” Perebyinis said, referring to the overwhelmed morgue where his wife is being kept. The Mercury News reports that he also claims the family dog, who could be heard barking in a video following the mortar blast that killed the family, had died too. Perebyinis was away from his family to care for his mother when Tetiana, 43, and their two children, Alise, 9, and Nikita, 18, were killed fleeing Russian attacks on the city.