The following is from an email from one of the last international journalists to leave Mariupol. I have removed names for the safety of all those involved. At a time when names can safely be given, I will give true credit to the heroes who fight to tell the truth.
Approximately a quarter of the 430 thousand residents in Mariupol left in the early days, while they still could. Unfortunately, few believed that the war was coming, and by the time the majority realized their mistake, it was already too late. Shell after shell...
The Russians disabled the electricity, water, food delivery systems, and, finally and most importantly, they turned off mobile communications, radio, and television. Few other journalists left the city before communications finally broke down and a complete blockade began. The lack of communication under the blockade serves two purposes. The first is chaos. People do not understand what is happening and panic. The second is impunity. If not for the destroyed buildings and dying children, the Russian troops could so whatever they wanted. If it weren't for us, these shots wouldn't exist. That's why we too risks to show the world what we saw. This angered the Russians so much that they hunted us down. I had never felt before that it was so important to break the silence.
The deaths began quickly. On February 27, we saw a doctor trying to save a little girl that was wounded by shrapnel. She died. The second child died. Then the third. Ambulances stopped picking up the wounded, because without communication, people could not call for doctors, and doctors could not go around the bombed streets. The doctors begged us to film the families who were bringing dead and injured relatives and let us use the generators to recharge our cameras. They said: no one knows what is going on in our city. The shelling damaged the hospital and the surrounding houses. The windows of the van were shattered, the side of the car was smashed, and the tires were punctured. Sometimes we ran out of the hospital to film a burning house and then ran back through the explosions.
There was only one place in the city with a good connection - near the plundered grocery store on Budivelnykiv Avenue. Once a day, we went there and hid under the stairs to send photos and videos. The stairs did not protect us much, but we felt safer under them than in the open air. By March 3, the signal disappeared there too. We tried to send the video by going up to the seventh floor of the hospital and leaning out the window. From there, we saw how the Port City shopping mall was being robbed, and we headed towards it through artillery and machine gun fire. Dozens of people ran out of there, pushing carts full of electronics, food, and clothes. A shell exploded on the roof of the store and I was thrown to the ground. I tensed, waiting for the second blow, and cursed myself hundreds of times for not turning on the camera to record it all. The second blow followed. With a terrible whistle, the shell crashed into the apartment building next to me. I hid behind a corner. A teenager ran past me pushing an office chair loaded with electronics - boxes falling off of him. "The shell fell 10 meters from here," he said. "My friends were there. I have no idea what happened to them."
We rushed back to the hospital. Within 20 minutes, casualties began to arrive. Some of them were in shopping carts.
For several days our only means of communication with the outside world was by satellite phone. The only place it worked was on the street, next t the shell crater. I sat up, cringed, and tried to pick up the signal. Everyone said: please tell me when the war will end. I didn't have an answer. There were daily rumors that the Ukrainian Army was going to brake the siege. But no one came.
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