Already a year since the blockade of the Ukrainian city Mariupol ended. On May 20, 2022, after taking the key ports of Berdiansk and Kherson, Russian forces attacked this port city, a strategic crossroads located on the shores of the Azov Sea. The 440,000 inhabitants will be trapped there, surrounded for long weeks. Back to the siege of Mariupol, which the European Union qualifies as a major “war crime”. More than 20,000 people are said to have died there, but no exact toll is known to date.
The martyrdom of Mariupol begins on March 2, 2022. The bombs are constantly falling, the inhabitants are hiding in their cellars. In a few days, everything is missing: there is no more water, no electricity, no heating, in freezing temperatures.
On March 9, a Russian strike hit a maternity ward and the image of a pregnant woman on a stretcher shocked the world. She will not survive.
Seven days later, the Russian air force bombed a theater where hundreds of people have taken refuge. He is “ impossible to bring in food and medicine “, denounces President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The last soldiers hailed as “heroes” by kyiv
The noose is tightening day by day, and tens of thousands of inhabitants are leaving Mariupol during perilous evacuation operations. On April 4, the mayor declares that the city is 90% destroyed.
In the end, fierce battles take place in the vast steelworks of the Azovstal group ; Russian President Vladimir Putin gives the order to besiege the factory “so that not a single fly will pass”.
On May 20, Moscow declares that Azovstal is under Russian control. The last soldiers surrendered, hailed as “heroes” by kyiv.
Testimony of a survivor
Mykyta Biriukov is a survivor. With his wife, mother and in-laws, the 29-year-old Ukrainian was able to flee his city Mariupol on March 24, 2022, after living for a month in the cellar of the family home, to the sound of Russian bombs falling without warning. stops on this port city. His grandfather died there. The former employee of the municipality of Mariupol, who now lives in the Netherlands, is still haunted by memories of the war and the siege of his city which lasted almost three months, until May 20, 2022.
” The images of my destroyed city still haunt me today, he says at the microphone of Heike Schmidt of RFI’s international service. It’s horrible. When I hear the sound of an airplane, even a civilian one, I feel fear. We lived without heat, water, electricity or gas. We fed on the few food reserves we had at home, such as spaghetti and preserves. From March 7, rockets fell in the courtyard of our house, and I could no longer leave our basement. But before, I helped provide relief, food, water and clothing to people who had taken refuge in our town. Then on March 24, we gathered the whole family in two cars to try to leave Mariupol. The road was cluttered with fallen trees, rubble from destroyed houses and pieces of mines. I drove with my broken windshield. It was a miracle that we got out of there. Today, I live with the dream that my city will one day be reborn. »