I am looking at the family photo: ordinary people who dreamed of living long and happy lives. An ordinary couple, ordinary human desires, an ordinary photo. It’s only that it’s…the last one. There won’t be any more photos because one Russian freak decided to launch a war, thousands of Russian freaks obediently rejoiced at the opportunity to kill people, and another freak, with a particular name, pressed the button on the dashboard of a particular Russian bomber plane. It happened so that it was flying over an apartment block on May 1 Street. That house was not picked out for some specific reason, no. The people who had been hiding in its basement for two weeks simply were unlucky to stand in the way of the Russian pilot. This way will take him to the war crime tribunal, but it does not make it any easier. The tribunal for murderers won’t bring their victims back.

The apartment block on the city’s left bank was not a strategic object. It was home to ordinary residents of Mariupol, to ordinary Ukrainians. But it turned out to be a good enough reason for the pilot to drop a deadly bomb onto it and continue on his way.

But it’s not the end of the story, far from it.

Olia O., who lives in Mariupol, shared her story with me. I am not calling her by her real name because she’s in town, and this might get her in trouble with the occupiers. But Olia did ask me to publish her story.

“If you need it, if you can use it somewhere, I’m ready to confirm that it’s true,” she texted me.

A few days ago, I didn’t know Olia, but now the story of her and her family is my story, too, because I’ll never be able to erase it from my memory. Olia tells me that at least 17 people died under the rubble of their apartment block on the morning of March 13, 2022.

“I survived because I was hiding in the shelter of a house next to it,” she says. “There was no shelter in our apartment block, only a basement, but people were hiding there anyway. They didn’t have anywhere else to go. We returned to our flat every day — to wash up or do other things. That day, we went there, too, but just before the bombarding, my daughter, my grandson, and I left. Some people stayed behind.

“A bit later, we heard a terrible sound. When we hurried outside, we were shocked to see what had happened. Our house simply folded. People had no chance to survive.”

The body of Olia’s brother and another six people, including three children, were dug out of the rubble immediately. Their neighbours did that.

“It’s terrifying, just terrifying to see children being pulled out and their mothers and grandmothers screaming. To see men break down and cry quietly, digging up the dead bodies. And to go outside later and see their graves in the yard. Two children, one teenager, and a pregnant young woman died there.”

Olia tells me the children’s names and sends me their photos. It hurts to look at them, but I don’t look away. The photos show sweet, cheerful children — still alive.

“This is Dima. He was ten. His mother was raising him by herself. They died together. This is Roma, nine years old. And this is Bohdan,” Olia says, counting. “A total of 17 people. All of my neighbours. You can’t bring any of them back. You can’t rewind time either. Life stopped for many people.”

Olia and I talked for the first time a week ago. Olia was still hoping that her husband, Yura, was alive. That day, he was planning to visit his parents, and Olia thought that the occupiers might have detained him on the way. She was searching for him and asked me to help her. A few days ago, Olia still had enough strength to believe in a better scenario. I am sorry to say that, but it was a Russist prison that would have been that “better scenario” for her husband, who never even served in the army.

Last night, Olia texted me again.

“My husband is gone. They found him under the rubble of the same house where my brother died. It was hard to recognize him. There were only remnants of bodies, different bodies. But his clothes…

“My friend saw that. He called me later and told me about it.

“The Russian rescue workers took away all the valuables they found under the rubble. Money, tools, gadgets. Right in front of other people. They put bodies into bags.”

“The most terrible thing,” Olia went on, “is that I can’t bury them. I can’t even find anyone to talk to about it at Metro, where they do registrations now. They told me to go to Mariupol and search for them. Or merely wait. If they find documents in dead person’s clothes, they enter the name into the database, and people can take the bodies away and bury them.

“In fact, our friend recognized Yura when his body was pulled out of the rubble. He recognized him by his jacket and some other special marks. He asked them to write Yura’s name on the body bag. But they either refused to do that or just could not find that bag later: too many bodies for them to look through…

“It costs 25,000 rubles to bury a person.

“My daughter, my grandson, and I are now in Georgia. Our friend was not allowed to take Yura’s documents or at least a photo of his body parts that were left intact. But I do have a shot.”

“What kind of shot?” I asked, terrified.

“Of Yura’s remains. Our friend secretly took the photo of the body bag contents,” Olia said and sent me the photo.

While I was trying to get over what I’d just seen, Olia kept talking — she just could not bottle it all up inside.

“That’s how most people look like. Just fragments of bodies.”

“In two weeks, I am going home. I want to see it all for myself. I won’t be able to live unless I try to do something about it. If I have other videos or photos, I will send them to you. I want people all over the world to know what is happening in the occupied Mariupol! Yes, they pulled dead people from the rubble, but it’s not possible to identify them, let alone bury them. We are ready to do a DNA test to find the person we love! But it’s not possible. We want to know where our Yura is! We want to know what they do to our people!”

Author: Oksana Stomina, poet, writer

Translator: Hanna Leliv

Illustrator: Victoria Boyko

Content Editor: Maryna Korchaka

Program Directors: Julia Ovcharenko and Demyan Om Dyakiv Slavitski