“On March 18, at 2:00 a.m., an air bomb hit the corner of the house. All the walls of the apartment collapsed. We were sleeping”

Valentyna Pokatilova and her husband are doctors. They lived near Azovstal. 

“So many wounded people had been coming since the day one. People were trying to get water. They came under fire. They had lacerations that looked like burns. People brought us their medicines. And we tried to save them,” says Valentyna Pokatilova, a resident of Mariupol and a doctor. 

As long as there was cell signal, children asked their parents to leave the city. But it was unclear where to go. A tank was driving by the house. Airplanes were also raining civilians in Mariupol with bombs. Valentyna’s house was shelled on March 18, at 2:00 a.m. The family was sleeping. 

“I was wearing a fur coat with a hood. I managed to ask my husband, ‘Are you alive?’ – ‘Yes, I’m alive.’ We ran to the basement. It was crowded. The air was heavy. We stayed there until 5:00 a.m. We have an electric car. So, we decided that if the battery was not dead, we would leave. We took only a bag with documents with us. We drove along the tramway tracks. There were many dead bodies on the roads, and burnt cars were everywhere,” recalls Valentyna Mykolaivna.