He thought his heart would stop in fear. Buried in the underground labyrinth of Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, Natalia Ousmanova, a 37-year-old Ukrainian, was able to escape Russian bombings on Sunday.
He was one of approximately one hundred civilians evacuated from the monster of concrete and rubble that turned into Azovstal.
Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians hid in the underground galleries and bunkers of this vast iron and steel complex built during Stalin’s time in this port city in southeastern Ukraine, on the Sea of Azov.
I was afraid the bunker wouldn’t holdtestified Natalia Ousmanova to Reuters. It was horriblehe pointed out, describing the concrete dust that fell on his clothes under the impact of the bombs.
When the bunker started to shake I was hysterical, my husband would attest to that. I was afraid the bunker might collapsehe said, turning to the wife.
It’s also been a long time since we saw the sunhe added in Bezimenne, a village under Russian control about thirty kilometers east of Mariupol, where the evacuees were brought under an agreement between kyiv, Moscow, theUN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
He talks about the lack of oxygen, the flashlight for guidance, the people crowding into these temporary shelters, the sound of bombs.
You can’t imagine what we went through: terror. All my life I lived and worked there. What we saw was just terrible.
Source: Radio-Canada
