Oleh and his family left Mariupol on January 26, first to Zaporizhzhya, then to Dnipro. But his former wife with an invalid son and mother-in-law remained in the city.
"On January 6 or 7, I arrived in Zaporizhzhya, where a convoy was being formed. We were supposed to go to Mariupol, but we were turned back in the area of Vasilivka. I decided to go on my own without the convoy and agreements. I called my acquaintance in Berdiansk, who had already travelled to Mariupol. He told me how to go. Three cars maximum. 16 checkpoints. On January 24, I managed to get to Mariupol myself.
I'm travelling in the middle of nowhere. There are anti-tank hedgehogs. People with weapons. I saw the occupiers for the first time. They stopped me. A tank was burning, it was not clear whose. A young fellow traveller started taking selfies. I shouted: ‘Faster!’. We drove 2 km and there was a terrible explosion. It was a tank.
Mariupol. My mother's house is open. I took her photo. She was already dead. I went to my ex-wife's place. There were wires, sparks, some piles... I realised that these were dead people, they were covered with rags. A shoe stuck out of the pile. I was in shock.
The neighbouring house, number 26, is burning down. Mine seems to be intact. I took some food. I open the trunk. People come out of the basements. One, two, three, four... I ask where the woman and the child are. ‘On the fifth floor.’ I go upstairs and jump over the hole in the staircase. Their eyes are indescribable! How do you leave an apartment? The fur coats, the TV. I gave them 5 minutes,' said Oleh, a resident of Mariupol.
