X – no chances, O – might live. What was going on in the occupied Mariupol’s hospital
It was a miracle that on March 16 the couple managed to escape from the city in ruins. Now Olena, aged 28 and six months pregnant, is safe. She has told us about the horror she had gone through.
I was planning to give birth to my child in the maternity hospital that became known to the whole world
We are internally displaced persons from Donbas. In 2015, we had to leave our home; first, we moved to Kramatorsk, following the suit of the Donetsk National Medical University where my husband had been studying. My Donetsk State University of Management moved to Mariupol. Vlad’s internship program also happened to be based in Mariupol, so we moved there in 2016.
At first, Mariupol seemed to us plain and very industrial. However, we were witnessing the transformation of Mariupol into a modern city, appealing to young people and attractive to tourists. Everything was being remodeled – parks, public gardens, squares, old buildings, the pier, the roads. New institutions were being established; an enormous number of festivals (MRPL FEST, for example) and entertainment events were being held. The city blossomed and developed with an enormous speed.
In addition to his internship, Vlad worked as a general practitioner at the Regional Hospital of Intensive Care. I was a driving school administrator, and in my free time, I did marketing on social networks. Our mutual hobby, a source of additional joy and finances, was organizing scavenger hunts for young people.
Last fall, I found out I was pregnant. The ultrasound showed that we were going to have a boy. He will be our firstborn.
Olena and Vlad. Photo from the family archive.
I’m due in July. By the way, I was planning to give birth to him in the same maternity house that was leveled to the ground on March 9.
We could not have imagined that it would be 100 times worse than eight years ago
When I recollect the morning of February 24, I remember I could not believe that it was happening again. We didn’t even imagine that it was not merely happening again, it was 100 times worse than eight years ago. We were certain that Mariupol had been protected better than any other city in Ukraine, which prevented us from leaving at once. Just a few days later, we regretted it very much.
When the invaders besieged Mariupol, the electricity, water, and mobile signal vanished from the city. Having stayed in the apartment for a few days, we decided to visit the hospital where Vlad worked. We thought that they might need assistance, they might have electricity, and we might learn some news.
At that time, we took only our bags with documents, notebooks, valuables, and spare underwear. We were confident that we would come back home. The very next day, the situation got worse, and the bangs became louder. It became extremely dangerous to go into the yard of the hospital because of the constant shelling and bombing. So, our return was not possible anymore.
A certificate with the words, "The body is given for further burial in the mass grave at the central cemetery of Mariupol"
The doctors and their families had been living in the hospital all this time. We became one of these families. There were also patients who had been receiving their in-patient treatment before the war broke out. We had food; everybody brought their supplies to the common table. My husband worked in the admission unit while it was still intact, and also in the general medicine unit. Generally, all the doctors staying in the hospital worked 24/7. It was especially hard for the surgeons and anesthesiologists because it is obvious what complaints people were admitted with at the time.
We learned where battles took place not from the news but from the wounded, brought to our hospital. I have never seen anything like that. It was a slaughterhouse, there is no other word for it.
People who had lost everything started coming to the hospital in search of food, medicines, and shelter. The neighborhood around the hospital had been mercilessly destroyed, so its residents didn’t have anywhere to go.
After the bomb was dropped on the maternity house, 40-week-pregnant women and newborns were transferred to our hospital as well. Some of them were in critical condition. Some didn’t survive. I will never be able to forget it!
The dead bodies were removed from the hospital in groups of 30 and buried in mass graves. Vlad personally issued a certificate, “The body is given for further burial in the mass grave at the central cemetery of Mariupol.” It happened to him only once, but issuing such papers became a routine for the deputy chief of the hospital. As you understand, the relatives of the deceased asked for these certificates. And how many deceased had been single, how many didn’t have any ID on them?
They moved people to the hospital and shelled the area from there
On the night of March 12, there was a takeover. We woke up as hostages of the Russian occupiers. The soldiers went through the hospital and examined all the men. They made them strip to the waist and searched for the traces of machine guns on their bodies, and the calluses on their elbows. They asked who they were and what they were doing in the hospital. The women were not questioned or examined.
All this time, we were trying not to cross their path. They insisted on our refraining from needless movements around the hospital, especially after 6 p.m., and from leaving its premises. Instead, they were inviting people to come stay at the hospital, and not only the wounded ones, saying that it was safe, there was food and water inside. This way, they increased the number of living souls on the premises, turning us into a human shield. Having occupied the hospital, “the liberators” drove their tanks and armored personnel vehicles into the territory of the medical institution and started shelling the area.
Mariupol under shelling. Photo: Olena Filimonova
We stayed in darkness almost all the time; the electricity was on only in the OR and the admission unit. It was getting colder every day, not due to the weather outside the window but because every day there were fewer and fewer windows and walls left.
Our hospital was shelled, too. The most powerful explosion happened on March 13. The third and fourth floors were hit directly, but the entire wing of the hospital was damaged. At that moment, we were on the first floor of the admission unit. I still have no idea how come we didn’t get hurt.
There were countless people in the hospital. The staff and their families, the wounded, ordinary people who didn’t have anywhere to go. They all stayed in the hallways and basements because it was dangerous to stay in the wards on the upper floors, and the lower ones were overcrowded. We were running out of food and water. There were some meds brought by the volunteers who broke into the nearby pharmacies.
Deplorable sanitation, horrible smell, darkness, cold, fear, inhuman living conditions, and uniform hatred for the ones who were responsible for all this.
Leaving without my husband would be worse than death for me
There were many wounded people, and the basements were overcrowded. So the Russian soldiers started “triaging” the patients, deciding who had a chance to survive and who didn’t. They were putting marks on the living people: X – no chances, O – might still live. We had not been marked because we were not wounded. They wanted to move all the doomed ones to the shock ward of the destroyed admission unit.
On that day, March 15, some brave people left the hospital at their own risk and peril and fled to their homes on foot.
We don’t know the further destiny of the people marked “X”, because the next day we fled this hell. On March 16, we formed a group with other people and decided to run away. It became impossible to endure all this. So, a group of doctors decided to try to reason with the Russian military and persuade them to let at least women and children leave. We asked for permission to just leave the territory of the hospital in an organized convoy to stay alive. In response, we heard, “Knock yourselves out, go away at your own risk and peril.”
On March 16, at 11 a.m., people got into cars, or rather whatever was left of them, stuck the cards with the word “Children” on them, tied on white scarves, and left. There were a total of 17 cars. At the last moment, we changed the route: the road from the hospital to the exit from the city was so damaged that we had to make our escape via Nikolske village. We took this risk though we had been told that this road was mined. While we were leaving the city, I was looking at the ruins and crying. The looters were taking the last food out of the closed warehouses; there were dead bodies of Ukrainian military on the roads. We went through so many checkpoints; they had been fewer in 2014. They were everywhere. It looked like a despicable demonstration of some kind of authority.
This is not the pregnancy I dreamed about
You know, I still can’t believe that we managed to escape. I still can’t believe my own luck as we could have been blown up and shot; we changed our route at the last moment; feared that our men would be just pulled out of the cars or that they would not let so many doctors leave.
If we hadn’t taken this risk on March 16… I don’t even want to think about it. Each subsequent day would have been even worse, and I just don’t know how long we would be able to endure it and whether we would be alive at all. These two weeks were the worst in my life. We almost gave up, and our hope was fading… No words can describe everything we felt.
How did I feel all those days? My physical condition was rather fine. I was worried that the cold and the absence of normal hygiene might have some consequences. But as for my mental state, it was awful, of course. You would agree that these are not the happy days of pregnancy any woman dreams about. But I still did my best to remain calm.
Now we don’t have any home, any job, or any specific plans for the future, but we are alive and healthy, which is something to rejoice about. The rest can be earned, rebuilt, and restored. I sincerely believe that’s what’s going to happen. Everything will be Ukraine!
