"On her birthday, my sister buried her husband"

In Mariupol, Inna survived with her two daughters, her mother and her sister's family. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion from the Left Bank, Inna moved to her mother's house and stayed there until March 2. Then they moved to a shelter with about 150 people.

"We were running for water. We came under fire from Grad rockets. The shell fell 20 metres away from us - we were blown away by the blast wave. But I believed we would make it.

My younger daughter was hugged all the time. The older one withdrew into herself when we went down to the basement. "Mum, I will never forget this. I thought I was going to die." The bright and sunny child withdrew, everything changed for her in an instant.

The neighbour died of another stroke on March 14. He was wrapped in carpet and film. They put him in a coffin. They nailed it shut. Left in the yard. The neighbour was buried only in June 2022.

On March 22, Russians broke into the basement. They shouted: "Where are the children?" I was afraid that my nephew would go into a diabetic coma. A soldier pointed his machine gun at my three-year-old daughter. They tried to separate our family.

They kicked us out of the basement. We ran towards the church, towards Liapino. I was carrying the little one, and my older daughter and nephew Maksym were looking at their feet. There were many unexploded shells. My relatives were running on the other side.

On March 27, my son-in-law Vitaliy, 39, was taken for filtration. We never saw him again. He died on May 7. We received a call from the 'DPR' military prosecutor's office only on May 13. Kalinin morgue. They said that he died of an ulcer and internal bleeding, but he died earlier due to the state of his body. His head was all blue. They were beating him. On May 17, my sister buried her husband on her birthday," said Inna, a resident of Mariupol.