04/23/2022 16:41 (act 04/24/2022 08:47)
After nearly two months under Russian fire in Mariupol, the Tishchenko-Komissarova family decided to flee the devastated city on foot with their four children. ©Photo by Ed JONES / AFP
The evacuation of Mariupol failed several times. A family of six didn’t want to wait any longer and, fearing hunger, made an incredible escape on their own on foot.
Day after day, the last inhabitants of Mariupol hope to be able to leave their port city, which has been besieged and bombed for weeks, through escape corridors towards Zaporizhia – and again they are disappointed. Eventually, Yevgen Tishchenko and his wife Tetiana Komisarova didn’t want to wait any longer. A week ago, together with their four children, they started the 225-kilometer flight to Zaporizhia on their own: on foot.
Fear of hunger drove family to flee Mariupol
The 37-year-old technician and his 40-year-old wife couldn’t take it anymore in the basement of the building where the family lived after a projectile broke the roof. Again and again they infiltrated stores in search of water and food, but more and more homes were bombed, more dead bodies lay in the streets, and their income became even more meager.
“After all, we were more afraid of starvation than of a bomb attack,” says Tetjana. Her sons Julja (6), Oleksandr (8), Anna (10) and Iwan (12) prepared her for the long march weeks ago. When it started, they were initially eager for the adventure, reports the mother.
Bunker shelter: Children see ruins for the first time
For the first time in a long time they left the house – and found only ruins. “When the kids saw this, they were silent,” says Jewgen. “I don’t know what was going through their heads. Maybe they realized our city no longer exists.”
Getting out of Mariupol and the protective basement was “difficult”, Anna agrees. When the bombs fell and the building “shattered a lot,” she wasn’t afraid, she could play in the basement with her friends from the apartment next door, says the 10-year-old with the cheeky ponytail. “Just sleeping on the concrete floor wasn’t great.”
Wheelbarrows made day trips easier
But the trek to Zaporizhia took a toll on her and her siblings. “We had to carry our bags, and they were pretty heavy,” says Anna.
The family is lucky, after a day they discover a rusty wheelbarrow: their “golden wagon”. From there things got a lot easier: “My wife pushed the tricycle with our youngest, I pulled the stroller with the suitcases and usually a child on top,” says Jewgen. So the family wandered through Russian-controlled territory for five days and four nights, repeatedly passing Russian checkpoints.
“Russian soldiers did not treat us as enemies”
They told soldiers they were on their way to their relatives, says Yevgen. “They didn’t treat us like enemies, they wanted to help us more.” But every time they are confused to learn that he and his family are from Mariupol, he says, “Why are you going here, why aren’t you going to Russia?” they would have asked.
Greengrocer took family to Zaporizhia
At night the family found shelter and food with the villagers, during the day they continued their long walk, growing increasingly tired. Then they were lucky again: about 100 kilometers from Zaporizhia, 125 kilometers after the start of their escape, they met the greengrocer Dmytro Shirnikov in the Russian-controlled town of Polohy, who was on his way to the Ukrainian-controlled metropolis with his goods. . . Without further ado, he invited the family with their few belongings to his beat-up van.
When they passed the first checkpoint with Ukrainian soldiers, “everyone cried”, says Zhirnikov. “We only had one goal: that our children could live in Ukraine,” adds Tetjana.
Arriving in Zaporizhia, the family managed to get a seat on a crowded train to Lviv on Friday. From there, she wants to move to the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk and start a new life. After the hell of Mariupol, Anna has only two wishes: “I want to live in a city that isn’t like this,” she says. “And in Ukraine.”