Emergency in Mariupol

The following notes, video and photos were sent in a few hours ago from Hanna Deikun, a Ukrainian grad student in the history department at the University of Illinois Chicago. We present them unedited — Popula Editors.

My mom is a doctor-radiologist, Svitlana Deikun, hospital N 4 in Mariupol. Our last call she said: “There are shellings all day long. We have a lot of wounded. You know, women, children, elderly people. But me and my colleagues just ate together. Ok, I don’t have time.”

Mariupol is an industrial city on the coast of the Azov sea. My brother, his wife and my niece are also in Mariupol. My niece had sent me the video of her, 25 of february, very scared she told me that everybody heard explosions and they were going to the shelters. The city had been close 20 km from the front line since 2014. People have heard shellings and explosions during 2014 and 2015. But now they are experiencing a total war. The stores have been empty for days. 

Mariupol, the city on the Eastern part of Ukraine, has been under constant shelling for the last three days. Surrounded by Russian troops in the West, East and North, the city is still under Ukrainian control. There is no water, electricity, heat and communication — and nobody writes about this catastrophe. I talked to my mom 24 hours ago, who works in the hospital N4, she said that they had a lot of wounded: women, children, old people. Since then I don’t have any communication with her, like so many of us. The city is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Mariupol is a city of 400 thousand people.

The situation is a big tragedy for all of us. In Mariupol the majority of the population is Russian speaking. Putin claimed that his “military operation” wants to “save” Russian speaking population. They are just destroying the city by shellings and explosions and peaceful Russian speaking population. The Russian troops don’t give the possibility to evacuate from nowhere, the smaller cities in the Eastern front (such as Sartana, Volnovakha) are completely destroyed, our city administration could evacuate 800 people with a big difficulty because of constant shellings. The situation is unbearably crazy. Despite the sanctions and support of the whole world, people are left alone to die in the city. Only thanks to our army, volunteers and administration, which stays in the city and tries to do whatever possible to save lives and don’t let the enemy enter the city. We need international help, we need to close the Fly-zones for the Russian troops. We can’t just observe a bloody theater online. People in Mariupol and my family don’t have time. Everytime I speak to my mom during the days of the war, she always says that everything is going to be alright. I want to believe in it with all my heart.