'I focused on survival': Mariupol escapee tells her story of one month in besieged city

euronews.com:

While the cruelty toward Ukrainian civilians projected through photographs and news segments bewilders the world, the ongoing siege of Mariupol continues to be the most shocking in its levels of destruction and absolute disregard for human life.

The remaining residents of the once-thriving southern port city of 432,000, encircled and constantly shelled by the Russian forces, have been facing starvation, thirst and cold for almost eight weeks.

Alina Beskrovna, a 31-year-old finance expert and Mariupol native, survived the first month of the siege in the city, managing to unexpectedly save herself, her mother, and their three cats in late March.

The time she spent there was all about survival, she told Euronews.

“I focused on just survival. We didn’t know if it would be possible to ever leave. I did not believe escape would be possible,” Beskrovna said.

“So my biggest fear, my absolute fear was twofold: one was being raped by Russians. The other was being taken to Russia by force or being forced to live in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic without the possibility of ever moving,” she recalled.

Now in Copenhagen and on her way to Canada as a refugee, Beskrovna described the harrowing month of life under constant shelling in horrendous conditions, punctuated by having to bury people she never met, all civilian victims of the siege.

“They shelled the grocery store nearby. Not everyone managed to escape. They shelled the nine-storey building across the street from us. Some people were sleeping in their apartments at night and got killed.”

“They shelled the private houses behind our cottage complex. People got killed. And we buried them,” Beskrovna said.

Situated on the northern shore of the Azov Sea, Mariupol was a trading and