“I was told that my mother had died. I wished they had killed me instead”

“March 13. A piece of shrapnel hit me in the leg. I fell. I covered my friend. If I had stepped away from my friend at the time, she would have been hit in the heart. The hospital. But how could I get there? Houses were burning, and roads were covered in debris,” Kateryna, a Mariupol resident, tells her story. “A neighbor was also injured. We were on our way to the hospital. Shots were fired at the car. The driver shouted, ‘Civilians!’ Shards of glass hit my head. A bullet stroke the woman. Five bullets hit my friend’s father.”