"I was waiting for my death, although I am only 16 years old"

Exhausted from incessant shelling and life in the occupation, a young Mariupol resident escaped to another country and begs to save her hometown.

I had quite a good life before the war. I always met with my friends, attended a regular school, was studying and preparing myself for the external independent testing. I was waiting for my dad to return from his sea duty. He was about to come. Yes, we had certain problems. They always exist. There were some reasons for suffering, but I loved my flourishing city.

In the morning of 24 February, I was supposed to go to school, but when I woke up, my mother’s first words were, “Sonya [short for Sofiya], get up, the war has begun.” I could imagine hearing such words only in some documentary films about the Second World War, but I certainly did not expect to see my mother in tears, telling me about such horror.

Only at 8 o’clock in the morning, when I urgently ran to buy some water and heard some rockets flying, I realized that the war had come. It was very scary. Because of the echo, it seemed that a rocket could fall somewhere near me. However, I braced myself and I helped my mum to make some supplies of food and water under shelling, just in case.

I remember a lot of terrible snapshots from that bloodshed, but the most terrible one was the 11th of March. Unfortunately, this date will always remind me of the war. That day, my grandmother and my younger brother went down to a dirty and dusty basement because they were very frightened by the night shelling. I stayed with my mum in the flat on the ground floor, where we had at least some heated space and blankets. Before that, we were freezing cold in the basement and got sick.

I was reading a book and my mother was solving a crossword puzzle, sitting on the sofa next to me. Suddenly an air bomb landed. An explosion! Our house bumped up badly, and the taped up windows [window frames] flew in the direction of my mum and me.

That day we were left without our flat and a warm place because the windows were broken, it was 10 degrees below zero outside, and half the house was destroyed. The ceiling, the bathroom, the door and one wall were damaged. And that was not the last such air strike. There were four or five of them, or maybe even more. But after that incident, I was waiting for my death, although I am only 16 years old.

We did not have water to wash our hands even after going to the toilet. But we made do on potatoes and some water we found. Black snow, some technical water, the water from the heating system – we used it for cooking, drank it, and gave it to children, because everyone who went to the river either went missing or brought water only for their families.

It was difficult to get humanitarian aid and food for five people. We were simply not given anything to eat for two weeks.

At first, we just waited for evacuation buses to come from Lunacharske roundabout to go to Zaporizhzhia, waited to the point of exhaustion. My family stayed for the night at a fuel filling station, together with the occupiers who came in nine times at night with machine guns and checked us. They tried to dissuade us from going to Ukraine. As they said, it would be better to go to Russia or the Crimea. We were afraid to say something to them because they were pointing machine guns at us.

We spent the second and third nights in the centre, where it was cold but at least there were no militants.

On the fourth day, when 10 minutes before curfew we learned that the buses finally arrived, my brother and I ran with heavy bags and in 10 minutes, we covered the distance that normally took 40 minutes.

I told myself that we should get on the buses while there are some seats available. I knew that they [the occupiers] could shoot me, but I ran on.

Then we went to Zaporizhzhia. It took us 26 hours to get there.  It was a very difficult and scary trip. No one knew whether they would order us to turn back or not. We hoped to the last. My grandfather read prayers all the way. Then we saw our military. I have never been so glad in my life before when seeing our compatriots and defenders.

I have been in Europe for a month now. I have almost adapted to the new climate, but I understand that there will be no my city, my Mariupol, anymore, as well as no walks with friends in my homeland.

We received the first humanitarian aid in Zaporizhzhia. It was some food and a temporary place where we could have some rest. We received a lot of help on the border with Poland. I did not expect that people could be so kind and compassionate to us.

I will not forget what they [the invaders] did to me. I will not forgive the aggressor country for my broken young life. Save the City of Mary [Mariupol]!