2 2GM Friday March 18 2022 | the times
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Rescuers in Mariupol were combing
through the smoking rubble of the
Drama Theatre yesterday.
Ukrainian officials said that more
than 1,000 civilians had been sheltering
in a bomb shelter beneath the theatre.
Russian shelling was continuing in the
besieged city, they added.
President Zelensky said the “number
of dead is not yet known” but that the
airborne attack showed “Russia has
become a terrorist state”.
Satellite images of the theatre on
Monday showed the word “children” in
Russian clearly etched on the ground
on either side of the building.
The bomb shelter had withstood the
blast, an official said. Serhiy Taruta, the
region’s former governor, wrote on
Facebook that there were survivors.
Petro Andrushchenko, an official
with the mayor’s office, told the Asso-
ciated Press: “After a terrifying night of
suspense, on the morning of the 22nd
day of war — finally some good news
from Mariupol: the bomb shelter has
withstood. Rescuers are clearing the
debris, people are coming out alive.
“We hope and we think that some
people who stayed in the shelter under
the theatre could survive.”
Andrushchenko said that the build-
ing had a modern basement bomb shel-
ter designed to withstand airstrikes.
Five days before the attack on the
theatre the Ukrainian military released
a film of its interior showing it packed
with women and children. “There are
so many children,” a volunteer said. “All
the children have a fever, I don’t know
what to do. Help us.”
The city council said: “The plane
dropped a bomb on a building where
hundreds of peaceful... residents were
hiding. It is impossible to find words to
describe the level of cynicism and
cruelty with which Russian invaders
are destroying peaceful residents of a
Ukrainian city by the sea.”
Italy has offered to rebuild the
theatre “as soon as possible”.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed
without evidence that Ukraine’s far-
right Azov Battalion blew up the
theatre. Local officials say that more
than 2,000 people have died in
indiscriminate shelling of the south-
eastern port city.
Reuters reported that people were
leaving the city in cars and on foot,
some pushing their belongings in
shopping carts. In the background were
bombed apartment blocks, some still
Our days start early in the morning, in
the bunkers where I sleep alongside
friends. Kyiv’s subterranean shelters
are noisy, busy places with lots of little
children. We eat some bread and butter,
or oats if someone is cooking. One
evening last week we ate stew — it was
our first hot food in days. Over break-
fast, we check the news to find out
‘I was a student before the invasion but now I must defend
whether the Russians have advanced.
The first job is the arrival of supplies for
delivery: food, ammunition or maybe
medicine to be distributed across the
city. A lot of people are too scared to
leave their apartments, or don’t have
the money to leave the city yet, so we
take supplies to them.
Volunteer groups hand out tasks so
we know which buildings to take sup-
plies to each day, always working in
groups of two or three because it isn’t
safe to go around alone. We spend a lot
of time navigating dangerous areas,
and often there isn’t time to return to
the same bunker at night.
I’ve learnt to always bring blankets
with me so I can find somewhere to
sleep. But often the noise from the airraids is so loud that we don’t get much
rest anyway.
I was a journalism student before the
war started. I carry a gun now but it’s
only for protection. We don’t want to
shoot without provocation. Instead we
mostly work on humanitarian support
and transport, bringing food and water
to people who need it, and new ammu-
nition to the soldiers.
We also look for Russian infiltrators.
As Ukrainians, we wear yellow tapes
and ribbons on our arms to identify
ourselves but now we are finding Rus-
sians wearing yellow as a disguise. So
we are always on alert for any men we
don’t recognise, or that nobody knows
here, who try to get involved in strategy
or deliveries. Maybe they are alone;often their clothes don’t fit right, or they
walk as if they don’t know the area. But
we don’t stop anyone ourselves; instead,
we tell the authorities. If they find he
has Russian papers on him, he is de-
tained as a prisoner and will be allowed
to contact his family or his troops to tell
them where he is.
On Monday two friends and I were
delivering supplies to a building. We
couldn’t get inside but we saw the
windows had been broken and we were
worried it had been looted. So one
friend and I decided to get inside and
make sure it was secure. We started to
climb up via a balcony, but it collapsed.
We both fell. He broke his leg, I injured
my hand, and we had to radio for help.
I was treated at a temporary hospitalbut he had to go to Lviv while he
recovers.
I was living with my family before the
war started. A week before the invasion,
my mother had gone to Poland for a
business trip. We weren’t overly wor-
ried as the tensions rose but on the day
the Russians crossed the border, my
older brothers were sent to the front
line. My mother tried to return to be
with us but we couldn’t find a safe way
to get her back into Kyiv.
Instead, we decided that my younger
sister, who is nine, and my two younger
brothers, twins aged four, should go to
Poland to join her. I took them to Lviv
by train overnight on March 2, where
we joined friends and very slowly
managed to reach the border. There IRussian infiltrators are
a constant danger and a
hot meal is a rarity
in Kyiv, writes
Luba Dovzhenko
y
News War in Ukraine
First survivors raise hopes for
smouldering. The city council said in a
statement that about 30,000 people
had left. Those who were leaving said
that they had to melt snow for water
and cook scraps of food on open fires.
“In the streets there are the bodies of
many dead civilians,” Tamara Kavun-
enko, 58, told AFP from the central city
of Zaporizhzhya. “It’s not Mariupol any
more. It is hell.”Chernihiv
At least 53 civilians were killed in an
intense bombardment of Chernihiv,
near Ukraine’s border with Belarus,
Viacheslav Chaus, the region’s gover-
nor, said.
Among the victims was James Hill,
68, a US citizen who has lived in
Ukraine for 25 years and worked as a
teacher. His sister, Cheryl Hill Gordon,
said he had decided to stay in the coun-
try when the war began because his
Ukrainian partner was too ill to travel.
“He was waiting in a bread line with
several other people when they were
gunned down by Russian military
[snipers]. His body was found in the
street by the local police,” his sister said.
The city of 280,000 people has been
under sustained attack for nearly three
weeks, with hundreds of buildings
damaged by heavy artillery.
Officials said that a hostel was
shelled yesterday, killing a mother,
father and three of their children,
including twins aged three.Kyiv
The capital emerged from a 35-hour
curfew as Russian troops struggled to
encircle it. One person was killed and
three injured by fragments of a cruise
missile shot down by Ukrainian air
defence forces.
Beneath an apartment block dam-
aged by a downed rocket, AFP journal-
ists saw a distraught man crouched
over a body draped in a bloodstained
cloth. Fighting continued in the sub-
urbs, depriving thousands of people of
heat and clean water.Kharkiv
At least 21 people were killed when
artillery fire pounded a school and a
cultural centre in the town of Merefa
outside the eastern city of Kharkiv,
regional prosecutors said. The region
has undergone heavy bombardment
while Russian soldiers try to advance.
Doctors in Kharkiv are struggling to
treat coronavirus patients. Several
times a day, air raid sirens wail at a hos-
pital, sending patients into shelters.Maxim Tucker
Cars stream out of
Mariupol, waving
white flags. The
southeastern port
was described as
hell by a refugeePHOTOGRAPHS:
ALEXANDER
ERMOCHENKO/REUTERSBanca do Antfer
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