MEDYKA, Poland (AP) – Yulia Bondarieva spent 10 days in a basement as Russian planes flew over and bombs fell on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Safely back in Poland, Bondarieva’s only wish now is for her twin sister to get out of the besieged city of Mariupol.
“They’ve been in the basement since February 24, they haven’t been outside at all,” Bondarieva said. “You’re running out of food and water.”
Bondarieva, 24, was recently able to talk to her sister on the phone. The fear of what will happen to her in the encircled and bombed out city enduring some of the worst combat of the war was overwhelming.
“She doesn’t know how to leave the city,” Bondarieva said after arriving in the Polish border town of Medyka.
Before the war, Mariupol had a population of about 430,000, and about a quarter left the city shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Later it became almost impossible to leave the besieged city. Tens of thousands have fled via a humanitarian corridor over the past week, including 3,000 on Monday, but other attempts have been thwarted by the fighting. The Mariupol City Council has claimed that several thousand residents were taken to Russia against their will.
Bondarieva said her sister told her about “Russian soldiers roaming around the city” in Mariupol and people not being let out.
“Civilians cannot walk,” she said. “You don’t give them anything.”
In a sign of the dangers to civilians trying to flee, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday that Russian shelling along a humanitarian corridor injured four children who were among the evacuees. He said the shelling took place in the Zaporizhia region, the original destination of the Mariupol refugees.
The battle for the strategic port on the Sea of Azov raged on Monday, with Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fighting block by block. It is not known how many people have died in Mariupol so far. City officials said March 15 that at least 2,300 people had been killed, some buried in mass graves. There has been no official estimate since then, but after six more days of bombing, it is feared the figure may be much higher.
Maria Fiodorova, a 77-year-old refugee from Mariupol who arrived in Medyka on Monday, said 90% of the city had been destroyed. “There (in Mairupol) there are no more buildings,” she said.
For Maryna Galla, after the noise of shelling and death in Mariupol, it was just the chirping of birds when she arrived in Poland. Galla went for a walk in the park in Przemysl with her 13-year-old son Danil. She hopes to reach Germany next.
“It’s finally getting better,” said Galla.
According to the United Nations, nearly 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the largest influx of refugees in Europe since World War II.
Valentina Ketchena arrived in Przemsyl by train on Monday. She never imagined that at the age of 70 she would be forced to leave her home in Kriviy Rig and see the city in southern Ukraine almost deserted as people flee to safety from the Russian invasion.
Kriviy Rig is now “half empty,” Ketchena said. She will now stay with friends in Poland and hopes to return home soon. “It (is) a very difficult time for everyone.”
Zoryana Maksimovich hails from the western city of Lviv near the Polish border. Although the city was less destroyed than others, Maksimovich said that her children are scared and cry every night when they have to go down to the basement for protection.
“I told my kids we’re going to visit friends,” said the 40-year-old. “They don’t understand exactly what’s going on, but in a few days they’ll ask me where their father is.”
Like most refugees, Maksimovich had to flee without her husband – men aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country and have stayed to fight. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she said.
In Poland, refugees can apply for a local ID number, which allows them to work and access health, social and other services. Irina Cherkas, 31, from the Poltava region, said she feared her children could be the target of Russian attacks.
“For the safety of our children, we have decided to leave Ukraine,” she said. “When the war is over, we will return home immediately.”
Poland has taken in the most Ukrainian refugees, more than 2 million so far. On Sunday night, Ukrainian artists joined their Polish hosts in a charity event that raised more than $380,000.
The star of the evening was a 7-year-old Ukrainian girl whose video of her singing a song from the film Frozen in a Kiev air-raid shelter went viral and garnered international sympathy.
Amellia Anisovych, who fled to Poland with her grandmother and brother, wore a white embroidered folk dress and sang the Ukrainian anthem in a clear, sweet voice while thousands of people in the audience waved their cellphone lights in response.
____
Keyton reported from Przemsyl, Poland.
____
Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war: http://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine