A bus carried hundreds of people who were evacuated last month from Mariupol and Melitopol to Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Chris McGrath / Getty Images
April 20, 2022, 11:45 AM PDT
KYIV, Ukraine — As fears mount for the besieged city of Mariupol, friends and relatives of people still trapped there are conducting an increasingly desperate search for information.
Mariupol has been under heavy Russian bombardment for nearly two months, leaving residents trapped with little food, clean water or medical care. There is also no electricity or functioning cellphone service, making communication all but impossible for loved ones who remain.
“I hope and I know that my mom will be all right,” said Ilya, 20, a customer service representative who fled Mariupol several weeks ago without his mother, who decided to stay. “She will be OK. She will leave that city.”
“Right now I’m just thinking of what she would be doing if she was in my place. And I think that she will never give up. So I’m not giving up,” said Ilya, who spoke to NBC News via Zoom on Sunday from west Ukraine.
He spoke on the condition that his last name and his location not be used out of fear of being targeted by Russian forces.
Moscow has demanded the surrender of Mariupol’s few remaining Ukrainian defenders, a move Kyiv has flatly rejected. Ukrainian officials said they hoped to evacuate as many as 6,000 thousand civilians on Wednesday as Russian forces close in on the last pockets of resistance.
“We will celebrate our victory when this all ends. And we will win, I know that,” said Ilya.
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9487911/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488068/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488146/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488219/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488307/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488382/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488440/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488511/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488559/
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9488596/
