Some foreigners are among the people affected by the presence of the Ukrainian army in the residential areas of Mariupol.
Gabriela Gómez, a young Cuban woman who moved to the city a few years ago in search of a quiet life, recounts a nightmare when Ukrainian soldiers used her house as a trench.
“I was living a nightmare I never thought I could leave. Today I only remember the horror I felt in Mariúpol,” said Gómez, now safe after being evacuated to Russia.
This young woman came to Ukraine in 2019. Previously, she worked at the MSC cruise line, where she met her partner Igor Ivanovich, who suggested that she marry her and live in Mariupol.
When he heard about the military operation in Ukraine on the news, Gómez thought that the authorities would protect them at the beginning of the conflict, but that didn’t happen.
On the contrary, the nationalist Azov battalion occupied the top three floors of the building where he lived and threatened them not to leave.
“I couldn’t believe that the Ukrainians were afraid of the Ukrainians themselves, I didn’t know it was the Azov army, I didn’t know it was the DNR, they had to explain it to me,” he detailed that they said after taking away all services after taking the building: “We had nothing. On March 1, the Ukrainians turned off the electricity; They turned off the power and turned it back on at 10pm at night and on March 2nd they turned it off and he left never to come back.”
Gómez says there was a time when it was very dangerous to go out on the streets. “I stopped going into the building where I was cooking and my neighbors came to my house to see me because they thought something had happened to me,” he said.
“I waited for Ukraine to help me and I kept waiting until the building burned down, they left us without communication; If you’re supposed to be looking after your people in a war, how do you keep them incommunicado?
Amidst the tense situation, the young Cuban realized that the Russian army was helping the population while she watched the Ukrainians destroy her city.
“In the end we opened the door because the part where we had to get out was on fire and We realized that the Russian soldiers would not shoot us“, he mentioned.
The Russians told them where they could be safe, so they ran to a basement and took refuge there. Days later, they were evacuated from the area and taken to Russia.
“By the time I was in Russia I felt calm because what I really wanted was to go out, I didn’t want to hear ‘Samaliot’ as they say anymore, I didn’t want to hear any more bombs, I didn’t want to hear any more guns“.
Once safe, her first call was to her mother, who desperately didn’t want to hear from her. “She was hysterical, she didn’t tell me, but later when I spoke to my family, they told me, ‘Your mother wouldn’t eat, she had trouble sleeping.’ Pretty difficult for any mother who has a child in danger.
Now the couple wants to stay in Russia. “I feel at home in Russia. I am often asked: why don’t you want to live in Spain or somewhere else? I don’t feel at home there,” Ivanovich said.