Surviving Mariupol
Surviving Mariupol
"The stuff that you're hearing about chemical weapons, this is straight out of their playbook.""They start saying that there are chemical weapons that have been stored by their opponents or by the Americans, and so when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a sort of ... fake story, ready to go."British Prime Minister Boris Johnson"In Russia, we are already considered dead. I was given the opportunity to call my parents and they told me that a funeral for me had already been arranged.""If we are exchanged [as prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia], then we will be shot by our own people."Captured Russian soldier, begging Ukraine not to return him to Russia"[The two Ukrainian de-bombers showed] mind-boggling bravery.""This Russia-dropped bomb would flatten a building -- and yet these Ukraine EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] technicians defuse it with two hands and a bottle of water, while shells audibly land nearby."Charles Lister, senior fellow, Middle East Institute think-tank, Washington"Some people will have food but I'm not sure for how long it will last. Many people report having no food for children.""People started to attack each other for food.""People started to ruin someone's car to take the gasoline out."Sasha Volkov, deputy head, International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to Mariupol"Because my mother is a midwife and my father owns a car, they are helping people and they can't just leave them.""There are a lot of people who, for example, are too old or who have babies and they are scared to leave under the bombing and falling rockets.""There is a humanitarian catastrophe happening in Ukraine and they need the world to help them."Mariia Moskalenko, internally displaced"Airstrikes started from the early morning. Airstrike after airstrike.""All the historic centre is under bombardment.""They want to absolutely delete our city, delete our people."Petro Andrushenko, adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, East Ukraine
Russian
expectations -- for the time being in any event -- appear to have been
dashed. Their lightning-strike invasion of Ukraine with the intention of
swiftly bringing matters to a head by decapitating the government of
the population's democratic choice has quite evidently not gone quite
according to plan. Despite superior fighting numbers and a decided
advantage in up-to-the-moment technical machinery of modern warfare, the
Kremlin appears to have vastly under-rated Ukraine's indomitable spirit
of resistance.
The
Russian military has been given orders of priority; Mariupol and Kyiv.
Kyiv is encircled and the Russian convoys have been bogged down, quite
literally. Mariupol's fate has been far more immediate, bombarded from
the sky, ground artillery aiming at the city's infrastructure --
hospitals not excluded -- it is in the process of being completely
destroyed. A plight seen by other towns and villages in the northeastern
part of the country, closer to Kyiv.
The
bombing of Mariupol's children's and maternity hospital saw three
people killed, with another 17 injured. Citizens of the city unable to
flee the bombardment since evacuation routes are also targeted are
running perilously low of the most basic requirements to prolong life. A
situation which has resulted in people turning against one another to
acquire for themselves what others too must have to exist; water, food,
warmth, medication.
The
people living in Mariupol this winter have been denied heat for days in
-9C overnight temperatures and they are steadily running out of food.
Which has led to events quite removed from normal life in the eastern
city, where people have been breaking into shops and supermarkets hoping
to garner food for their families. The deputy head of the International
Committee of the Red Cross delegation has reported that some people had
taken to attacking others.
It
is believed that over 1,200 civilians have been killed in the city of
430,000. The city's cemeteries no longer dig single graves for
individual corpses and conduct ordinary funerals. Instead a
25-metre-long trench has been prepared to receive the overwhelming
numbers of casualties that the city's morgues are unable to deal with.
In every metric of human existence, this situation really merits the
description of "humanitarian catastrophe".
"We do not have the opportunity to bury them in private graves",
explained Vadym Boichenko, Mariupol's embattled mayor. At the opposite
end of the spectrum, Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saw fit to
dismiss concerns surrounding civilian casualties, characterizing them as
"pathetic shrieks", insisting the hospital was being used as a base by 'far-right fighters'.
Residents
of the city were advised to prepare dead bodies by tying their hands
and legs together, to cover them and leave them outside their homes.
Others drag bodies to the mass graves rolled into carpets or plastic
bags. There is no count being taken of the numbers that have been buried
in mass graves, nor are there records being kept of names and other
identifying features.
For
the most part the endless shelling by Russian forces is responsible for
the dead, while some have died from natural causes at their homes, but
because of full morgues, authorities are unable to arrange for their
collection. Family and friends are not permitted to gather at the
cemetery where those they know and love are being rolled into the
trenches.
Tanya,
a six-year-old, was among those killed in the shelling. She died of
dehydration, trapped under the rubble of her home. Her burial too was
among those other countless, unnamed corpses.
AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka |
Labels: Artillery, Bombing, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Shelling, War Crimes, War Dead
Labels: Artillery, Bombing, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Shelling, War Crimes, War Dead
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