The horror of the most violent episode to date of the war in Ukraine was evident in the words and drawings of Yegor Kravtsov, an eight-year-old boy who kept a secret diary during the siege of Mariupol.
As Ukrainian troops fought an increasingly desperate defense against Russian forces in the city, Yegor spent several weeks with his family in a basement, filling the pages of a small blue diary with a beautiful image of Greece on the cover.
“I slept well, then I woke up, smiled and read 25 pages. My grandfather died on April 26,” says Yegor, reading his diary with his mother and sister.
The family managed to escape the now Russian-controlled city and reach Zaporizhzhia, 100 kilometers from their destroyed home.
A missile attack knocked over the roof of the residence and three people were injured.
In an excerpt from his diary, Yegor writes: “I have a wound on my back, the skin is torn. My sister’s head is broken, the muscles in my mother’s hand are torn, and there is a hole in her leg.”
Picture: EKATERINA KLOCHKO/AFP
“Everybody cried”
On a sunny day in Zaporizhzhia, Yegor plays badminton and drives a scooter, a world very different from the images of destruction he recorded in his diary.
Drawings show armed men, tanks, a helicopter and buildings targeted by the explosion. In one, the roof of her house collapses after the missile attack.
“The noise scared me,” she wrote in her diary. In another passage, he describes how his family members went out in search of water. “I want to leave so badly,” she wrote.
His mother, Olena Kravtsova, says she cried when she first found the diary.
“I took it to my family to show it. Everyone cried,” he told AFP.
“Maybe she just needed to express herself so she wouldn’t keep all her emotions inside.”
Yegor’s 15-year-old sister, Veronika, who has a deep scar on her head, hopes the diary “will be useful to someone in the future.”
Her diary footage was first posted online by Yegor’s great-uncle Yevgeniy Sosnovsky, a photographer who documented the battle for Mariupol before he left the city last month.
The family lived near the Azovstal steelworks, the last stronghold of Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in late May after three months of fighting.
They are now being held in a shelter for IDPs in Zaporizhzhia and are planning a trip to the capital, Kiev.
Yegor’s mother claims that her son is still in shock and is reluctant to tell what happened. When asked if she would like to continue writing in the future, she replies, “Probably.”
source: Noticias
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