On Saturday, Mariupol city council said 10 empty buses headed to Berdyansk, a town 84 kilometers (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 people left Mariupol on Friday, some by bus and others in their own vehicles, city officials said. People who managed to cross the Russian lines to reach the city of Zaporizhzhia described their journey as a test in which Russian soldiers repeatedly stopped them to check for the presence of Ukrainian fighters. “They stripped the men, they were looking for tattoos,” said Dmytro Kartavov, a 32-year-old builder. Another group said they were stopped about 17 times at Russian checkpoints as they were leaving Mariupol. Another, Tamila Mazurenko, said she left Mariupol on Monday and arrived in Berdyansk that night, but had to wait until Friday for a bus and then spend a night sleeping in a field. “I have only one question: Why?” she said about the test of her city. “We lived only as normal people. And our normal life was ruined. And we lost everything. “I do not have a job, I can not find my son.”
