Damage at Mariupol’s children’s hospital.Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/Shutterstock
Speaking toThe Washington Postin a story published Thursday, several Ukrainians recounted trying to get in touch with family members to no avail, only to see news stories and social media posts about hundreds dead in attacks and then wondering if their relatives were among the casualties.
Twenty-seven-year-old Dima Sokolova described consistently communicating with his mom, Dima, until he received a final text on the morning of March 2: “No electricity, no signal, shelling all night and close to us,” his mother wrote him via Telegram.
Sokolova told thePosthe had not heard from her or other family members since. “With every new day I feel more and more useless being in Kyiv,” he said. “They’re just 450 kilometers away.”
Anna Tokhmakhchi — who said she has been in Prague since before the fighting began on Feb. 24 — described a similar scenario to the paper, saying she last heard from her mother in Mariupol on March 2.
Now, according to thePostand other reports, it is almost impossible to get into or out of Mariupol, where munitions have claimed a still-unknown number of lives as the fighting has escalated.
Mariupol, Ukraine, in the wake of an attack during the Russian invasion.EyePress News/Shutterstock
Not being able to get her mother to safety, Tokhmakhchi told thePost, is “a big shame for me.”
“My life is now filled with guilt. I feel it every time I have any meal or drink water or even when I go to bed in a warm place and I think about how my mom could be in the basement,” she said. “It’s unbearable. Every day is a struggle because I am safe. We don’t have bombings here, we don’t have tanks in our streets. But just thinking about her not having all this basic stuff is killing me.”
Tokhmakhchi further described scouring the internet for photos that might show how her mom is faring. Already, she’s seen photos of her old school — now destroyed.
Mariupol has apparently become a central target for Russian aggression in recent weeks.
On Thursday, it was reported that a theater in Mariupol, in which hundreds of Ukrainian residents weretaking shelter, was bombed — even though the word “children” was written in Russian outside the building.
“On 16 March, Russian air force dropped a powerful bomb on the building of the drama theatre in Mariupol. The theatre building served as a shelter for hundreds of Mariupol residents who had lost their homes as a result of Russian armed forces bombing and shelling the city,“a statementfrom the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine read, in part.
“The bomb strike demolished the central part of the theatre building, causing large numbers of people to be buried under the debris. The assessment of the exact number of persons affected is currently impossible due to ongoing shelling,” the statement continued.
Last week, theAssociated Press reportedthat residents of Mariupol had begun burying their dead in a mass grave on the outskirts of the city.
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The remainder had died of other causes in the coastal city of almost 450,000, which had been without power, heat and water in sub-freezing temperatures.
Russian military forces also severely damaged a children’s hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyysaid in a tweet last week, writing: “People, children are under the wreckage Atrocity!”
source: people.com
