‘GOD HAS LEFT MARIUPOL'
The Guardian Weekly|April 01, 2022
An unfolding story of heartache, destruction and death has been documented by residents
Daniel Boffey
‘GOD HAS LEFT MARIUPOL'

AT 3.50 ON THE COLD MORNING OF 24 FEBRUARY, Iryna Prudkova, 50, received a message on Telegram from her daughter, Valeria, 24, who lives in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

“Are you listening to Putin? ” Valeria’s message read. “That’s totally fucked up. There is a special military operation.” At 4.08am Valeria messaged again: “Mum, Kyiv is being shelled.”

Sitting in her small flat on the first floor of a nine-storey apartment block in the leafy Kirovsky residential area of Mariupol, a port city on the Azov Sea, whose name has now passed into infamy, Iryna knew what she had to do.

She had already packed a small bag containing money, some jewellery to trade for food and shelter, and documents. Her husband, Alexandr, 46, argued that they could stay a day or two to sort out their affairs. “I told him, ‘We have to leave, it is the last chance.’”

As Iryna hastily packed a suitcase, Alexandr took their Mercedes W212 to fill it with petrol, joining a long line of cars.

As Alexandr waited nervously, the night sky suddenly lit up with a deafening thunder, a noise unfamiliar even in a city close to the frontline of the eight-year battle between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk.

The war had taken its grip of Mariupol – and has yet to let go.

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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 01, 2022-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.

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