One of the evacuees from the long-suffering Mariupol shared her first impressions of her stay in the bunker for many days.
Yesterday, May 1, the long-awaited evacuation of civilians from the Mariupol Azovstal metallurgical plant took place. Hundreds of Ukrainians saw the sun for the first time in a long time. Reuters interviewed liberated Mariupol residents.
Natalia Usmanova, 37, has been hiding from Russian bombs in Azovstal bunkers for two months. The woman shared her impressions of life in the dungeons of the metallurgical plant with Reuters journalists.
, describing the time when she hid underground.
Built in the 1930s, the metallurgical plant has an extensive network of bunkers, a kind of underground city that was to become a shelter for people in case of war. Almost a century later, the bunker unfortunately had to be used for its intended purpose. Despite the specifics of the underground shelter, people who are still hiding in it, fear that the fortification will not withstand the ruthless bombing by the occupiers.
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“When the bunker began to tremble – I was hysterical, my husband can confirm this: I was very worried that the bunker will not survive,” – recalls Usmanova.
She recalls and the lack of oxygen in shelters and the fear of the lives of people stranded there.
“We haven't seen the sun for so long,” said Natalia, stepping on the ground in the village of Bezymenne in the temporarily occupied Russia, about 30 km east of Mariupol. Together with Usmanov's family, she was among the first hundred evacuees from Azovstal and jokingly said that they would no longer have to go to the toilet with a torch.
“You just can't to imagine that we have experienced is terror, “Usmanova stressed. “I lived there, worked all my life, but what we saw was just awful!”
The evacuation operation was supported by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
It will be recalled that on April 26, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres met with the President of Russia in Moscow. As a result of this meeting, Putin allegedly agreed to evacuate Mariupol residents from the metallurgical plant. However, the next day the Kremlin denied this, saying that Russia did not give its final consent.
