by Andrew RC Marshall
LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Over the phone, Victoria Zabourina pleaded with her 76-year-old mother to flee as Russian troops now besiege Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
The old lady replied that she would stay, that the town was calm. Then she called her daughter to tell her that she had taken refuge in a municipal hall because a bomb or a shell had destroyed a school near her apartment, now littered with debris.
“It’s pretty quiet now, so I’ll probably go back home,” said Tamara Oussenko. “Don’t worry” will be his last words heard by his daughter, who has since heard nothing.
Telephone lines are cut with the port city bombarded by Russian forces, where hundreds of thousands of inhabitants are holed up, deprived of water and electricity for more than a week.
Like Victoria Zabourina, thousands of Ukrainians are desperate to hear from their loved ones.
Oleg Maksimchuk has an older brother, 63-year-old retired Viktor, who lives in a village east of Mariupol. The two men have not exchanged a word since February 26, when Viktor was hiding in a cellar.
“The shelling started,” Viktor said in that last phone conversation. “I can see fighter jets too.”
Oleg, who lives hundreds of kilometers away, tried to call his brother back the next day, without success. “I hope he’s alive,” he said.
He posted a message on a Facebook page created to help Ukrainians with relatives in Mariupol. “Any information will be appreciated,” he wrote, adding: “Glory to Ukraine.”
A group has also been created on Telegram messaging to search for residents of Mariupol and other bombed towns whose families have not heard from them. He has 70,000 subscribers.
“I WILL SURVIVE ONCE AGAIN”
Russia promised to open a humanitarian corridor to evacuate residents of the port city, but the project fell through when Ukrainian authorities accused Russian forces of shelling it.
On Tuesday, the Kyiv government said a six-year-old girl died of dehydration after a Russian strike destroyed her home and killed her mother.
Russia describes its massive military offensive in Ukraine as a “special operation” intended to demilitarize, “denazify” and “neutralize” the former Soviet republic.
Until 1989, at the start of the collapse of the USSR, Mariupol was called Zhdanov, after the former member of the Soviet Communist Party politburo who notably led the defense of Leningrad during the long and deadly siege of the city. by the German army during World War II.
The birthplace of Andrei Jdanov is now in turn besieged by the Russian army.
Olga Ouga has not heard from her 82-year-old uncle, Anatoly Moulika, for eight or nine days. He lived alone in an apartment in eastern Mariupol.
Born during World War II, he refused to leave. “He was optimistic and didn’t want to hear about escaping,” says his niece.
“I will survive once again. I will never give up,” he told her during their final interview.
(Report Andrew RC Marshall; French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Marc Angrand)