There are mass graves in the city in which bodies are buried without goodbye or tribute, often anonymously. “There are also corpses on the street,” says Olga. “Peaceful people are killed and left on the streets.”
Due to the Russian encirclement, the city is deprived of food and medicine. There is also hardly any drinking water. There is no electricity either. “The worst thing is the cold. A lot of people freeze to death. I don’t know how many.” It has been freezing about 6 degrees at night for the past few days. To somewhat warm the destroyed houses, fires are lit, says Olga.
At night it is hardly possible to sleep. You cannot sleep a wink because of the constant bombardments. “They keep firing, all the time. Why still? Everything is already in ruins.”
Surrounding unexpected
Olga could not have imagined beforehand that the whole city would be surrounded and pinched. On February 21, three days before the invasion began, she announced that the atmosphere in the city was no more tense than usual. “The fear of war has been there since 2014, but people are just living their lives.”
A few days later there was nothing left of that normal life. “We hear explosions everywhere, but I don’t know where from,” she sent on the day the Russians left Ukraine invaded† She stocked up on food, like many of her fellow townspeople, and prayed that it would be all right. But it didn’t work out.
Stad is offline
The contact between the NOS and Olga arose through a Telegram group of residents of Mariupol. From 2 March it became quiet there. The siege of Mariupol had begun, the city immediately went offline. Messages to Olga received only one tick: sent, but not received.
Almost all members have not been online since March 2nd. Anyone who is online turns out to live elsewhere and follow the group in the hope of reading something about acquaintances from Mariupol. Such as Artyom Chiznov from Kiev, who hopes to contact more a friend in Mariupol.
Anastasia Korbkina from Zaporizhzhya misses her friend in the besieged city. “She needs insulin because of diabetes, but it probably isn’t in stock.” Evacuation lists from Mariupol are circulating on Telegram. With every newly shared list, she searches for her friend’s name. So far without result.
Girlfriend killed
Olga is one of the estimated 30,000 residents who did manage to get away. She had to leave her parents and in-laws in Mariupol because they didn’t want to leave their house. According to the city council, there are currently about 350,000 people in the besieged city.
She left the city on Tuesday, in a car with A4 sheets taped to the windows. ‘Djeti’ is written on it, Russian for ‘children’. That should stop the Russian military from attacking the cars. At the bombed theater of Mariupol tried the samebut that turned out in vain.
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