They are 79 Thursday to have reached Zaporijjia, city of the south-east of Ukraine still under the control of kyiv. Seventy-nine evacuees from Mariupol, a city-martyrdom pounded by Russian bombs. Almost as many faces extinguished after nearly two months of siege.
Alighting from three yellow school buses, passengers, many of them women, take the time to recount their journey and the hell they leave behind at Zaporizhia’s main reception center – a large white tent pitched on the parking lot of a hypermarket.
Like Anastasia (assumed name), whose fixed gaze bears witness to trauma. “This evacuation was a show,” says this 19-year-old woman, who describes the many Russian cameras that filmed the starters. “We were given some care, but it was just for the media.”
The rumor of a potential exit from Mariupol had spread around 10 a.m. Wednesday, she said, while the opening of humanitarian corridors had been announced for days without being followed up.
“Many people living in the territories occupied by the Russians want to leave, but they prevent them from doing so,” protests Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk, present in Zaporijjia.
Out of dozens of buses expected, only three arrived, she says indignantly: “Nothing worked. (…) There was no + green + corridor”.
In Mariupol, the meeting was scheduled for 2:00 p.m.
– Tank et snipers –
On her way there, Anastasia remembers hearing “a Russian tank hitting a building”. She claims to have seen “many Russian snipers” on the roofs.
After almost two months of uninterrupted bombardments, few candidates for exile have yet come forward. Seventy-nine in total, according to Ms. Verechchuk, when around 100,000 people still live in the port city.
“People didn’t know if the rumor was true,” says Anastasia.
“In front of the Russian journalists, we were asked who wanted to go to Russia,” says another passenger, an old lady wearing a beige cap. “No one raised their hand. Let them die!”
One bus, out of the four present in Mariupol, nevertheless left for Russia, says Anastasia, without further indication of the number of people who boarded.
For the 79 who arrived in Zaporijjia on Thursday, a journey of more than 24 hours had started, when three are normally needed to travel the 225 kilometers between the two cities.
“We knew the way but we didn’t recognize any place. We didn’t know if we were going to get to Ukraine. At one point we thought they were taking us to Russia,” Anastasia recalls. Inside the cars, “people were desperate”.
The anguish finally comes to an end in Zaporijjia. Some burst into tears. Valentina Grintchouk, a little 73-year-old woman wearing slippers and a black coat with holes, begins to hug and kiss everyone she meets.
– “Never again” –
“From the first day (of the Mariupol headquarters, editor’s note), we were in the basement (…) It was cold. We prayed to God. I asked him to protect us”, she says, adding that many young “not aggressive” Russian soldiers had regularly supplied her with water and food.
Her apartment and her son’s house are now destroyed, she continues. Approaching a journalist wishing to interview her, she takes her wrist and hugs her gently.
Natalia Koval, 46, for her part, recounts the first words of an “angel”, a young “blond and curly” child from her building, who said his first words during the two months of confinement.
“I never want to hear a bombardment again,” says Tatiana Dorach, 34, who, accompanied by her six-year-old son, only longs for a quiet night and “a bed to sleep in”.
Anastasia is pregnant after losing a child last November. She has not seen her husband, a soldier, since March 14. And haven’t been able to reach him since. Weeks later, when Russian soldiers were accused of atrocities, she said little or nothing.
His eyes seem to stare in horror. She just lets go, speaking of her husband: “I hope he is alive.”