Burnt buildings, sunken ships and shrapnel: Recently taken by Russian forces, the port of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine is now devastated, a team from the AFP.
If no more combat takes place, the din of the bombardments comes regularly from the industrial zone where the metallurgical complex of Azovstal is located, the last redoubt controlled by the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, visible a few kilometers from there on the other bay side.
Several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are holed up in Soviet-era underground galleries in Azovstal. The Ukrainian presidency announced on Friday that the evacuation of non-combatants was planned for the same day.
However, AFP was able to hear heavy shelling in Azovstal on Friday morning and until mid-afternoon, during a press trip to Mariupol organized by the Russian army.
In the early afternoon, the explosions were spaced only a few seconds apart, some appearing particularly powerful. Columns of gray smoke sometimes rose in the sky of the industrial zone.
– Demining –
On the other hand, the situation was calm in the port, which nevertheless bore the scars of the siege which made Mariupol, a strategic city located on the Sea of Azov, one of the symbols of the Russian offensive in Ukraine which began on 24 february.
Most of the administrative buildings in the port area are heavily damaged, their facade gutted or blackened by the flames.
Here, life seems to have come to an abrupt halt, taken aback.
Rolls of copper, which were to be delivered to Israel, according to their export notices, lie abandoned. A little further on, abandoned wagons are ripped open, revealing their cargo of iron ore.
Several ships are also stranded in the port, including a freighter and a Ukrainian military command building, the Donbass, destroyed during the siege of Mariupol.
Sign that the danger is not yet completely removed, demining operations are taking place in the port area, where fragments of missiles dot the ground. Two shells which did not explode are stuck vertically in the tar.
“The waters of the port and the port itself have been mined. We are carrying out demining operations to secure them,” said Sergei Neka, a senior official in the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the pro-Russian separatist administration.
At the end of a jetty, two men in heavy suits work to neutralize underwater mines brought up by divers, as well as rockets.
Once the devices are neutralized, they are taken away by a military truck.
A little further on, a few men with shovels walk alongside a digger in the direction of one of the many destroyed buildings. A clearing that will take time.