I would have never thought before February 24, 2022 I had to appeal to you my dear friends.
I happily visited rehearsals at the theater where I work, smiled at the primroses that had already grew in our warm South Ukraine, I was planning to come to my mom’s place in Mariupol for her birthday in March as she wasn’t expecting from me, and was making up a vacation plan so that the whole family would go to the sea together…
The war in Ukraine as all other wars started so abruptly and turned everything over. Mean putin violently attacked our country from all sides. The constant reinforcement of Russian troops from the occupied Crimea and the so-called “DNR” and “LNR” and the increase in their number in the territory of southern and eastern Ukraine made it impossible for me to come to Mariupol, where my whole family is staying. I’m in Nikolaev, and all my family and relatives have no opportunity to leave Mariupol. First few days of the war we kept in touch, but on March 1, the city was completely cut off of electricity, supplies, water, heating, and 4 days later – gas. When the war started my dad was in the hospital, and my mom and sister looked after him.
My family couldn’t buy needed goods and medications, then the stores and pharmacies were still open, and after the very first day of the war, everything had been closed. Then came the electricity cut off throughout the city, because the Russian troops deliberately bombed all the power stations. Every patient in the hospital (even those who needed oxygen supply, or intensive care) was sent home (if they had families or someone to take them back as there was no gas/disel at the gas stations and the public transport stopped working), because the hospitals could no longer leave them and do anything to help them, as constant air raid alert started. So my family was at home.
On March 14, there’s been two weeks the city of Mariupol has been blocked.
I hardly believe that someone in EU or the USA has ever heard about my city. If you google it one may find some information about metplants or fortposts in there since 2014. But right now Mariupol is in urgent news. My city is a symbol of horror and all the grief caused by the war started by putin in our country.
Due to official information half a million people live in Mariupol, as a lot of them moved there from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions occupied by Russia in 2014. 500,000! This is the population of the entire Luxembourg (the whole country!). This is the population of Oslo, this is a third of Paris, this is Frankfurt am Main!
And today the Russians do as Nazi did to Leningrad during World War II. They set up Siege of the city. Mariupol is the Second Leningrad or the Second Syrian Aleppo. Mariupol surrounded by putin’s unhuman killers.
People of the whole world! I address you as citizens of civilized countries, as friends who help our country, as my brothers and sisters who have families, as the ordinary people with a heart.
Mariupol is a hell right now. In fact, the city no longer exists, it is being bombed without stopping. There isn’t a road, house or window which haven’t been damaged or shelled. But people still exist and they could still be saved! The city is its people not the square km of land. They are fighting for their lives, they want to stay alive!
It’s a disaster. Patients or people with special needs, unable to move without wheelchairs, die in their apartments or decay.
Starving and dehydrated they are dying on dirty sheets, in their own feces, and their rotten bodies are smelling. Everyone in there is dying – fathers and mothers, covering their kids from shells, and then, these kids are dying as well as there’s nobody to help them to get out of the corpses of their parents. Some of them are looking for meds and food in bombed and abandoned houses.
Karš Ukrainā. Nogalināts cilvēks. Autores foto
People in need of special meds, care or equipment to keep them alive – they are all probably already dead, we just don’t know it yet! People in 2022, in the civilized world, died from lack of insulin or oxygen or some other medications! How should Mariupol women give birth in basements under incessant bomb explosions?! How their newborn children die in their arms from simple cold, hunger or dehydration (and this is also a reality of 2022!). Mariupol residents travel on foot kilometers a day to get water from the sea for drinking (!), Mariupol residents are staying in abandoned and destroyed basements, and it is -8C outside. They heat and boil food on fires. Every day after the bombing Mariupol residents come out to cover the corpses on the streets with blankets and they are trying to bury them even in mass graves in yards of their own homes. Mariupol residents today are praying to God for peace in our country and are begging to stay alive and hug their children, parents, family members.
And today I finally got through and had a call, I’ve been waiting for a long time. I’ve been praying to God on my knees and he heard me, through tears my mom told me how she loves me, and begged me to write to all organizations and all TV channels in the world so that they could be saved, that they want to live. My sister choking during these precious seconds, asked for help, asked to save the innocent residents of the city, my relatives, my mom, dad, herself and my sister was yelling at me that they were hostages, that people’s lives were at stake, that this is not a price one is willing to pay.
Europe! The USA! NATO! People! I believe that our President and the courageous and brave soldiers of our Ukrainian army are doing a lot to save the people of Mariupol and protect our entire country, but I’m also appealing to you, to each of you who are now standing in line for bread, or drinking coffee in a park, or speaking to their relatives right now.
I’m desperate! And millions of people around the world who have relatives in Mariupol are in despair as well! Tears do not dry, prayers do not leave our lips, we want to see our families alive!
The world has already understood that for putin, a human life is nothing, he can destroy and bomb civilians, and kill children. But for you, for every Humans, there the concept of a “human life” still exists. Life is priceless.
The world! After all, you cannot allow half a million of Ukrainians to turn into corpses lying under the rubble of buildings, in littered shelters, pulled apart by hungry dogs, unidentified and unburied.
The whole world! Listen and hear people of Mariupol – they are asking you to help, to help stop the war in Ukraine, which takes away hundreds of lives every day! I don’t want to be proud that my family, the only valuable and dear thing I have, the meaning of my life, sacrified their lives in the battles for the city, I want to hear their voices and hug them alive.
The world! I don’t want Mariupol to become a symbol of Ukraine’s freedom and courage if it had to become a mass grave for half a million of people. It won’t count if the authorities, deputies, correspondents from all over the world come to celebrate the victory of Ukraine, lay flowers and write long mournful speeches about the price of freedom, and the heroism of the inhabitants of the city will be immortalized in books and films – that won’t work.
The world! Ukraine is grateful to you for your support, for a shelter for our people fleeing the war, for financial support, for humanitarian aid, for the equipment supply, for sanctions against Russia – our killer, for everything that you are doing for us. But if the lives of half a million civilians are under threat, then is it not enough? We need more! Help us world!
Politicians! Leaders! Presidents! You were chosen by the people so that you could do what you should and make a decision. The people trust you and trust you with their lives. Ukraine has already realized that the Budapest Memorandum turned out to be nothing but a piece of paper and we are not protected from the war and all the sorrows, troubles and death that it brings. But we know about the capacity of your countries, you can help us! You can do more for us! Don’t stay away, “worried and condolences”, help us!
I am writing this while sitting down in the hall, because the air raid alarm started a long time ago and we should have run to the basement, but… Yesterday in Nikolaev, during the shelling, 9 people were killed, just standing in line to withdraw money in ATM and to go to the store. Today, a shell could hit me as well. Therefore, I do not run to the basement, because I want to appeal and risk my life to send it to you. I want to save my family!
The world! Hear us!
People of the whole world, stay humans! Help save Mariupol!
Full of hope for your help, with a prayer in my soul for our free Ukraine and with painfull heart for my relatives,
Ksenia Zasypko, 30 years old, born in Mariupol, but now living and working in the city of Nikolaev
Pagaidām nav neviena komentāra