Missionary among the killed in Kramatorsk train station attack

The 40-year-old Roman Sementsov was responsible for evacuating groups with children. He died as a result of the shelling of Kramatorsk railway station. This was published by the Ukrainian news website Kuma.city. According to Jaume Torrado, the president and director of the NGO El Bon Samarità, an entity that collaborates with the organisation that sent the missionary, Sementsov leaves behind his wife and four children. “He grew up in the church, and his whole life was marked by service to others”, Torrado explained to Protestante Digital.

A Ukrainian national, Roman was a member of the Pentecostal Church of God denomination. After completing his training at the Freudenstadt seminary in Germany, he developed his ministry in volunteer work. “He was part of the volunteers who served in Ukraine,” says Torrado. This reports the Christian French news website Evangeliques.info. “Since the Ukrainian government requested that all the inhabitants of the city of Kramatorsk leave quickly because a humanitarian massacre was expected, Roman went to help in the evacuation of the people who were at the train station. That’s where the bomb fell, and that’s where Roman lost his life,” he adds.

After the massacre of Bucha (Donbass), which cost the life of the dean of an evangelical seminary, it was again a young volunteer who fell victim to the atrocities of war. Russia, meanwhile, denies Kyiv charges of what amounts to a war crime.

Good Samaritan

El Bon Samarità, ‘the good Samaritan’, is an evangelical organisation working in Catalonia for almost 30 years. They also carry out emergency projects and collaborate with development projects outside the country. “In Europe, we collaborate with a ministry based in Germany that focuses on Eastern European countries”, explains Torrado to Evangelical Focus.

Torrado says that the organisation has created four orphanages in Ukraine, including one in Mariupol. “Fear and the circumstances of the war led us to decide that the children had to leave. It has been very difficult. We tried to cross the border with the children three times, and it was impossible. Finally, on the third attempt, we coincided with other orphanages, and ours was the only one that got through”.

According to Torrado, the 31 children were first moved to the seminary in Freudenstadt, Germany. After a while, they moved to Blanes in Spain.