When Serhii woke up to the news that a bomb had leveled the Mariupol Theater where hundreds of people were taking shelter, she felt unable to breathe.
Inside were his wife and two daughters.
A day before the attack, the 56yearold editor, who lives in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, received a panicked call from his 30yearold daughter.
He hadn’t heard from her since March 1, when Russian forces stepped up their assault on Mariupol, the strategic port city, unleashing a relentless barrage of missiles and bombs from land, sky, and sea.
With the loss of electricity and internet, Mariupol was largely cut off from the outside world. Serhii, who asked that only his first name be used for security reasons, was desperate for news from his family.
Not receiving them, he had no choice but to rely on the grim picture of life and death conveyed by Mariupol officials: residents live in “medieval conditions”, forced to melt snow for water and Cooking food outdoors on an open fire. Civilian targets, including residential buildings, a maternity hospital and the main administration building, were reduced to rubble. The ceasefire was ignored and humanitarian evacuation corridors were blocked.
Just a few weeks ago, that was an unthinkable situation in this busy industrial city, once known for its baths and a large steel mill, and now the scene of bitter fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Serhii was worried about his wife, 56, and daughters, particularly the eldest, 36, who lives with a disability and needs medication on a daily basis. But her relief at finally hearing from them was quickly replaced by paralyzing fear.
In a hasty conversation, the youngest told him that she could charge her phone on a diesel generator, but that she had little time to talk. She explained that her home was destroyed in the bombing and she wasn’t sure where they would be safe. He told her to go to the playhouse in the center of town, where officials organized buses to evacuate residents.
“When I advised them to move to the theater as an evacuation site, and the next morning I found out that this place had been bombed … I almost went mad, insane,” Serhii told CNN in a phone call from Kyiv. “Because I actually sent them to the bombs.”
The March 16 bombing of the Mariupol Theater, where some 1,300 people had fled, according to Ukrainian authorities, was one of Russia’s brazen attacks on civilians since the invasion began in late February. The word “CHILDREN” was painted in huge Cyrillic letters on the floor of the building. The message, large enough to be seen from the sky, was written near a public square occupied in prewar summers by children swinging on playgrounds and running through fountains. Russia has denied that its forces attacked the theater, instead saying that the Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian army’s main presence in Mariupol, blew up the building.
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