"I'm sure I'll die soon": the letter of an Ukrainian woman from Mariupol

@ElentirENG ES 3·22·2022 · 7:00 0

Nadezhda Sukhorukova is a Ukrainian woman born in Mariupol who lives in that city in eastern Ukraine, which is besieged by the Russians.

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Located on the shores of the Sea of Azov, Mariupol is a port city that at the beginning of the Russian invasion had more than 400,000 inhabitants. Last Friday, the UN described the state of that city as "extremely dire", as its neighbors face "critical and potentially fatal shortages of food, water and medicine." Yesterday, the BBC broadcast these images of the city, destroyed by Russian attacks, which have repeatedly targeted civilian targets: "It is estimated that 90% of the city's buildings have been damaged or destroyed," the British media says.

Last Saturday, March 19, Nadezhda Sukhorukova wrote the following letter on her Facebook profile (which is presided over by a photo from February 24, the day the invasion began, in which she appears next to a Ukrainian flag). The letter has gone viral, shared by more than 18,000 people in two days. The original of the letter is in Russian, the mother tongue of most Mariupol residents:

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"#Mariupol #Hope I go outside in between bombings. I need to walk the dog. She constantly whines, trembles and hides behind my legs. I want to sleep all the time. My yard, surrounded by high-rise buildings, is quiet and dead. I'm no longer afraid to look around.

Opposite, the entrance to the one hundred and fifth house is burning down. The flames have devoured five floors and are slowly chewing on the sixth. In the room, the fire burns gently, as in a fireplace. Black charred windows stand without glass. From them, like tongues, curtains gnawed by flames fall out. I look at it calmly and doomed.

I'm sure I'll die soon. It's a matter of days. In this city, everyone is constantly waiting for death. I just wish it wasn't too scary. Three days ago, a friend of my older nephew came to us and said that there was a direct hit in the fire department. The rescuers died. One woman had her arm, leg and head torn off. I dream that my body parts will remain in place, even after the explosion of an air bomb.

I don't know why, but it seems important to me. Although, on the other hand, they will still not be buried during hostilities. This is how the police answered us when we caught them on the street and asked what to do with the dead grandmother of our friend. They advised to put her on the balcony. I wonder how many balconies are dead bodies?

Our house on Mira Avenue is the only one without direct hits. He was hit twice tangentially by shells, windows flew out in some apartments, but he was almost not injured and, compared to other houses, looks lucky.

The entire yard is covered in several layers of ash, glass, plastic and metal fragments. I try not to look at the iron fool who flew to the playground. I think it's a rocket, or maybe a mine. I don't care, it's just annoying. In the window of the third floor I see someone's face and I twitch. It turns out that I'm afraid of living people.

My dog ​​starts to howl and I understand that now they will shoot again. I stand in the daytime on the street, and around the cemetery silence. There are no cars, no voices, no children, no grandmothers on benches. Even the wind died. There are still a few people here. They lie on the side of the house and in the parking lot, covered with outerwear. I don't want to look at them. I'm afraid I'll see someone I know.

All life in my city is now smoldering in basements. It looks like a candle in our compartment. To extinguish it is nothing to do. Any vibration or breeze and darkness will come. I try to cry, but I can't. I feel sorry for myself, my family, my husband, neighbors, friends. I go back to the basement and listen to the vile iron rattle there. Two weeks have passed, and I no longer believe that there was once another life.

In Mariupol, people continue to sit in the basement. Every day it gets harder for them to survive. They have no water, food, light, they cannot even go outside because of the constant shelling. Mariupol residents must live. Help them. Tell about it. Let everyone know that civilians continue to be killed."

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If you want to read more things that this woman is writing from Mariupol, you can follow her Facebook profile here.

At the head of this entry I have put a photo of the Sea of Azov that Nadezhda published on March 2. That day, next to the photo, this Ukrainian woman wrote:

"I can't understand who these scum are fighting with? With children, with women, with newborns, with doctors, with patients? Why do these goblins hit schools, kindergartens, hospitals, maternity hospitals? They have become child killers and terrorists."

It is embarrassing to think that in the West there are people who think they are decent and who continue to defend that scum, justifying their atrocities or equating invaders and invaded.