“I realized that each of us might not have a chance to survive at all”

In Mariupol, Aliona was surviving with her 9-year-old son, her husband, and his mother.

“Thoughts of not having food tomorrow was very frightening. There were no emotions. There was only survival. We knew we had to take care of the child and each other. We were told: “You can go, but there is no guarantee that you will survive.” It seemed that this was the situation in the whole of Ukraine. We did not know where to run.

16 Pokryshkina Street. A shell hit the house. People were carrying the dead in carpets. Then I realized that each of us might not have a chance to survive at all.

The 23rd mikrorayon. Everything was burning in black smoke, it was a terrible picture.

On the night of March 15, a shell hit the neighboring apartment. We heard the glass breaking. We ran to the child. He was with his grandmother. He covered his head with a blanket. The glass hit the wall and the shards fell on the blanket.

We were drinking coffee and heard an airplane. We ran out into the corridor. It hit my father-in-law's apartment. He got a concussion. A fire started. There was nothing to put it out. We all survived together. My son had a rabbit. My mother-in-law and her son went down to the basement, and we went up to the apartment. The rabbit was killed. We decided to leave, but we did not know whether we would be able to escape.

On March 16, we left. I saw that the building of the Drama Theater was destroyed, everything was smoking, wires were hanging around. There were no roads. We drove along the coast. We did not know if there was a corridor. We saw broken cars. We reached Mangush only at night. It took us 13 hours to travel 8 kilometers,” said Aliona, a resident of Mariupol.