They Died by a Bridge in Ukraine. This Is Their Story.

 

 "Through the night, Serhiy Perebyinis had tried to monitor his wife’s location using a locator app on their phones. But it showed nothing: The family was in a basement, without cell reception.

Around dawn, he said, he saw one ping, showing them at their home address. But nothing showed them moving. Cellphone coverage had become too spotty in the town.

The next ping of a location on Serhiy Perebyinis’ phone came around 10 a.m. Sunday. It was at Clinical Hospital No. 7 in Kyiv. Something had gone wrong.

He called his wife’s number. It was ringing, but nobody answered. He called his children’s phone numbers, with the same result.

A half-hour or so later, he saw a post on Twitter saying a family had been killed in a mortar strike on the evacuation route out of Irpin. A short time later, another Twitter post appeared, with a picture. “I recognized the luggage and that is how I knew,” he said."

RE AD NEWSTORY BY ANDREW KRAMER