Three weeks later Nadia and her children left.
Thousands more civilians are stranded in Mariopol, Ukraine, besieged by Russian forces, without electricity, water or gas. Many attempts to provide humanitarian assistance and evacuate people have failed. The suffering is not over, even for those who escaped, especially their children.
Their first task is to stand in line every day and buy bread slices, sausage and water. Nadia Denisenko and her children escaped from Mariopol three weeks after their home was frozen in a shelling attack near her apartment in Mariopol.
They had very little food for several days, and they had nothing to drink.
“We were glad we filled the bottle with water. We emptied the water in a matter of seconds,” Nadia recalls, reaching a safe place with her two sons, aged 14 and 5, and their 12-year-old daughter.
“When the war started, my second son said, ‘Mom, I feel like I need to eat some bread.'”
This is another story of their unbelievable recovery from incredible tragedy.
They spent many days on the sidewalk where large walls were erected in Mariopol. They spent their nights in bunkers. They usually wake up at 5am. The bombs, which sometimes occurred nearby and sometimes on the side, did not put anyone to sleep.
“It’s a hell of a hell of a thing,” said Nadia, 39, who worked at a supermarket in Mariopol. “You live without knowing if you will wake up alive in the morning,” Mariopol says of his life.
“It simply came to our notice thenணIt’s fun “
In Russia’s fight against Ukraine, Mariopol has faced many serious dangers. The Russian forces that surrounded the city were relentlessly attacking in all three directions, air, land and sea. Most of the largest cemeteries are buried unmarked. Adjacent streets and adjoining buildings in Mariopol are now in ruins.
“We were subjected to serious shelling. They didn’t care about anything … My son kept asking, ‘Why are the bombs exploding?'” Nadia says.
“I tell him, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just fireworks.’
When they were in Mariupol, the neighbors kept the food they had and cooked it in the streets.
“Most of the time we were outside without houses because being outside was warmer than being inside the house,” Nadia says.
For the last two days there, they had nothing to eat. No grain or even oats. It does not matter if you have money. There is no food in that city.
In an attempt to escape from there, they went to a place where cars were parked, believing it might be the exit route from there. But, they came under attack.
“That attack was intentional,” Nadia said. Nadia says they survived because someone pushed her and her children out of the damaged building where they thought they might be safe, “like puppies”.
“Why are they trying to kill us?”
“When we got out of there, we saw something horrible.” One of the cars there was shelled.
One driver was wounded in the head while trying to evacuate his family from the city.
Nadia and the others were taken to the bunker, where the paramedic was sewing the wound with a simple needle and thread. “After seeing all this we came home and my last son asked me, ‘Mom, why are they trying to kill us,'” Nadia says.
“What can I say to him? I do not know.”
Days later, on March 17, they left the city by a parade of private vehicles. First they reached the village of Mangush. Later, they reached Berdyansk, which is under the control of Russian forces.
Later, they traveled by bus to Zaporizhia. He said there were checkpoints across the road set up by Russian troops or Russian-backed separatists.
“They tested us, especially the men and our cell phones,” Nadia says. Nadia, who knew all this was going to happen, had already deleted the photos taken at Mariopol.
“When I left that city, I was so dirty and muddy. I didn’t even have a bath. When there was nothing to drink, you wouldn’t even think about taking a bath.”
It took them five days to travel from Zaphorizia to Lviv, a city heavily fortified from Russian aggression, in western Ukraine. Here, as an indication that it is a war-torn country, air strike warning sirens are sounded several times a day and then turned off.
The child who hides the food
“We are safe here, we can buy food. But my son still hides things, including bread and candy. He hides in various parts of the apartment where we are currently staying.”
Nadia asks her son why he is doing that.
“He says, ‘Then I’ll have something to eat tomorrow,'” Nadia says.
Nadia believes she can recover from what her children have gone through. Nadia’s daughter, who said she did not want to come with us for our interview, is a person who can talk to everyone, but in the new city she has not yet made friends.
Nadia says that after the war in Mariupol, the city was rebuilt and her daughter wanted to return to normalcy there.
“Nothing surpassed … the city was growing. It was very elegant,” he says. Nadia says the only thing that is not there is McDonalds.
“I do not understand why all this happened. Why are they doing this?” He says.