Residents of the besieged city have no time to let the dead rest – or bury what is left of them – lest they become the last victims of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion. And so abandoned playgrounds, destroyed by the war, have become a different kind of rest. These days, every dugout, crater park and communal garden wedged between the bombed-out cages of buildings in the port city has become a makeshift cemetery. “A rocket hit a nearby apartment building with 20 people inside. “People were trying to remove the bodies with their bare hands when another rocket hit them,” Alisia, a mother of two, told the Independent after escaping to Zaporizhzhia. It is a city 200 kilometers north of Mariupol located on the edge of a moving front line. “I saw so many corpses, no one could take them all. “People bury them in the pits with sand on top of each other,” the 35-year-old added shockingly as her daughters, dressed in matching pink hoods, tend to look at their terrified cat behind her. “Digging a grave is extremely dangerous.” Children arrive at a reception center in Zaporizhzhia in the middle of the night after a dangerous journey from Mariupol (Bell True) Sitting in a supermarket complex that has been transformed into a makeshift reception center from Mariupol, Alisia is relieved to have left the city where more than 100,000 people are estimated to be still trapped in the incessant Russian bombing. A few thousand people have managed to escape on their own – by car, on foot or even by bicycle – in recent days, but many attempts to secure a humanitarian corridor and organize evacuation convoys have failed. Mariupol, a strategic port and a land bridge between Russia and Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, has become synonymous with the barbarity of Putin’s invasion. The city has suffered the worst from the bombing and has been under constant siege for more than a month. It is a genocide against the inhabitants of Mariupol Angelica, 45, who left Mariupol a few days ago Half of Alisia’s family is missing as they separated when the front line flooded their neighborhoods in early March. He had to finally leave them when they ran out of food and water, which had accumulated from the melting snow and rainwater. “We were constantly underground for the last two weeks before we left. “I did not see the sun,” says Alicia, swallowing her words with a pause. “We had a sack of potatoes left to eat. “We were in no one’s country and we had to run.” A woman walks out of a maternity hospital damaged by bombings in Mariupol (AP)
“Everyday life in Mariupol is to dig a grave for someone”
Alicia’s story was echoed by two dozen other Mariupol residents interviewed by the Independent last week, who also spoke of mass starvation, massacres and mass graves. Alia, 20, and her boyfriend Max, 21, both students, say the rocket fire was so intense that it took two attempts to escape. The first time, the young couple was offered an elevator by a family friend who had managed to find a work car, but was killed in a bomb as he drove to pick them up. The second time, relatives outside the city crossed the Russian-occupied territory and headed to the battlefield to retrieve them. But Max and Alia’s parents are still trapped in Mariupol, having abandoned valuable car seats for their children. “The corner of every kindergarten is a grave. “We had 15 corpses buried in the garden next to our building,” says Alia, holding her cat, which is wrapped in a Christmas blanket. “Everyday life in Mariupol is like digging a grave for someone,” adds Max with ashes. Russia has denied that it has targeted civilians in Ukraine since Putin launched what he called a “special military operation” to oust the country on February 24. But the testimonies from Mariupol give a picture of savage attacks that seem at best indiscreet and at worst reciprocal. The testimonies and evidence are so painful that Amnesty International, which has documented the use of banned ammunition, has accused Russia of committing war crimes in the city. Since then, the UN has launched an investigation into crimes committed across Ukraine, and Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said in Mariupol that “people live in pure terror”. The coastal city is not just a valuable target for Russians in a geographical sense. The largest port in the Sea of Azov and one of the largest in Ukraine, has long been a fierce battlefield between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian army. It is also the birthplace of Azov, the far-right battalion founded by members of neo-Nazi groups that later joined the Ukrainian National Guard. They played an important role in the recapture of Mariupol by Kremlin-backed forces in 2014. And so the fight against the city seems almost personal. A little boy cries after escaping bombing in Zaporizhia with his pet dog (Bell True) Complicating the deteriorating humanitarian crisis, there has been no mobile network, water, electricity, heating or gas for a month. No food or medical supplies are coming to town. Thousands – if not tens of thousands – of the once-population of 450,000 in Mariupol are believed to have been killed or wounded in battle. But no one can count the dead, let alone bury them. An unknown number of people are believed to have also died of hunger or thirst. Ukrainians, meanwhile, estimate that more than 80 percent of the city has been irreparably damaged or completely leveled. Recent drone footage showed an ash lunar landscape echoing other war-torn cities such as Aleppo in Syria. Multiple attempts to open a humanitarian corridor in the city and establish a limited ceasefire have failed. In the latest attempt this week, Ukraine said several aid buses it was trying to send were seized by Russian forces as bombing continued. And so, without help to leave the city, it is up to the citizens themselves to bravely face the attack and escape in their own cars or on foot through bombings, shootings and Russian-occupied territories. Civilians tie white rags and write “kids” in Russian on their cars in the hope that soldiers will not target them (Bell True)
The desperate search for the missing
During the night, the battered vehicles, adorned with white rags, painted red crosses and placards reading “children” in Russian, roll in Zaporizhzhia. Shocked refugees – who have been navigating many front lines to reach the volunteer-run reception – are using every means possible to escape. Red crosses and license plates on cars are desperate attempts to avoid being shot or bombed on the road. A man, Nikolai, arrives incredibly on a bicycle, having done 200 kilometers in the war. The 32-year-old tells the Independent how he left Mariupol last week with a friend who pushed his belongings into a wheelchair. He said he was detained at a checkpoint for two days by Russian-backed separatists who suspected him of carrying a yogurt drink with a name that bore the historic name of Western Ukraine. He says they also disagreed with his blue and white striped top – as it looked like telnyashka, the traditional underwear worn by members of the Russian and Soviet armies. Inside the makeshift jail, Nikolai says he met a dozen women looking for their missing husbands. She describes how the women – through the bars of the cells – pushed photos of their husbands, who, as they said, had been arrested. “It’s like taking revenge on ordinary people,” the electrician added before returning to his bike to ride further west. “There are an unknown number of people who are missing.” A volunteer goes through the messages posted by the families about their missing relatives in Mariupol (Bell True) The white boards that have been set up in the reception centers of Zaporizhzhia are a creepy indicator of the disappearance of Mariupol. Desperate families write messages and their phone numbers on pieces of paper, asking for help in locating loved ones who have disappeared into the nightmarish chaos and confusion. The walls of the centers are covered with photos of missing persons. “Go to Prospect Mira Street in Mariupol and bring back my relatives. “He is an adult and has three children,” he said in a note. “Christine, a personal trainer, last called on March 2,” said another next to an Instagram photo of a woman with her dog. A message says that a friend named Irina has been ignored since the beginning of the war and was last seen in “maternity hospital 1”. “I would be grateful for any information,” wrote the mission, signed by a man named Stanislav. In the background, a woman, Inna, 45, is thinking of writing her own message, as she has not heard from her husband for a month after she stayed behind in one of the most affected areas of Mariupol to protect their home from the looters. “The last time I spoke to him, I heard him cry for the first time in my life,” said the 45-year-old, holding her 12-year-old son Ivan and their puppy Monica. “He said he no longer cared about the apartment or the belongings, he just wanted to leave. He said he would try to find shelter, but I do not know if he did. “ Sandbags close the windows of Zaporizhzhia Children’s Hospital, which treats the wounded from places like Mariupol (Bell True)
“It feels like revenge”
Her despair underscores the urgent need to open up official humanitarian corridors. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) attempted on Friday and the weekend to lead again a convoy from Mariupol after an agreement for the safe passage of civilians and limited …
