34 Days Under Fire in Mariupol
April 21, 2022
“It was hell. The photos that you are able to see – well, they are photos. But to live through it…”
A few weeks ago in a blog post I referenced a pastor from Mariupol that had just evacuated the city, whose story I wanted to share.
Vasyl Ivanovych was a pastor for 29 years at his church in Mariupol. He was the last pastor from their circle of churches to leave Mariupol since the war on Ukraine began. On March 29th, after 34 days of near constant shelling, Vasyl and his wife Anna made the harrowing attempt to leave the besieged and almost entirely ruined city of Mariupol, a beautiful port city that was home to over 400,000 people. He was one of the people Andriy transported from Zaporizhzhia to Rivne.
In Rivne, Vasyl and Anna stayed with my extended family—Andriy’s family, Pavlik’s family, and my aunt and uncle, who all live in the multi-family home my aunt and uncle built. They spoke about their experience at Andriy’s church, only days after they had left Mariupol.
Andriy, my aunt Olya (in the pink beret), with Anna and Vasyl.
First, a Content Warning
I have to admit, I have felt at a loss as to how to preface a story like this. I have heard so many terrible stories and seen so many terrible pictures of this russian genocide campaign in Ukraine in the past eight weeks that I no longer know how to gauge just how horrific or graphic something is.
But I believe it’s important to share this story unfiltered for the same reasons that museums capture the horror stories of genocides of the past. We must bear witness to the pain and the atrocities being committed in Ukraine by the russian army to honour those who have suffered them and to do our part to bend the long arc of the moral universe toward justice, to borrow Martin Luther King Jr.’s hopeful words.
That being said, you should know that this account is heartbreaking and may be difficult to read. There are no graphic pictures, videos or audio in this post. But the written account shared here does contain disturbing content and some graphic descriptions of death and dead bodies. Please take care.
Vasyl’s Story
I am a witness to how truly horrific it was in Mariupol. The conditions were hell. It was hell. The photos that you are able to see – well, they are photos. But to live through it… And for a long period of time… at least for me it felt like a long time.
Our area was one of the first to be bombed – Kurchatova St. At the beginning it wasn’t as terrifying. But the bombing persisted, so the church services weren’t able to continue in person. On the 13th [of March] I went to the church because I anticipated that people might start to arrive, and then the constant, heavy bombing started. When my neighbor’s house was shelled and completely burned up, I said we should leave to stay in a safer building.
In the very beginning I made the decision to not abandon Mariupol because I thought a pastor should stay with his people until the end. I knew where families with many kids lived, I knew where church members lived, those who lived alone, who were elderly. You couldn’t get around Mariupol by vehicle; you could only go by bike. I would fill my backpack with groceries, seek out the people, visit with them, pray with them. Some of the people I would see–their homes were completely burned down. It became a horrific, horrific time.
Two men from our church were staying in the hospital where their wives worked as nurses. One of them counted 42 bombs in an air raid in just one night. By day it was grad missile attacks or other projectiles. The sky was filled with them all day. It was just unbearable. The only reason I am alive and standing here today is by the grace of God. I would be riding my bike while missiles were exploding around me, and praying, “God, protect and save me”. I didn’t tell my wife everything, because she would have stopped letting me go out.
One day when I arrived at the hospital on a visit, I was told that at another church that was sheltering lots of families with many children, our two friends were killed.
These two young men were driving to deliver food and fuel. A missile landed right on their car as they were driving down the street. The force of the impact threw one of the men out of the car - his legs were blown off.
I immediately went by bike to meet and pray with their wives, young widows. Our friends were buried right on the church property.
I was praying that our church would be spared the destruction and be left whole so that we could continue to gather. One day as I was walking to the church – at that point I didn’t have my bike anymore – I saw that it had burned down completely. It was so painful to see the sanctuary, completely burned up, the roof completely gone. I visited the neighbours who lived close to it – their house was destroyed, so they were just sheltering in their basement.
Imagine, you’re laying at night in a cold house, almost nothing to eat, you’re cooking food outside… When you’re older it’s one thing, but when you are going through this with small kids, it’s scarier for them. As we lay there and count the rockets flying overhead, we pray, “God, is this one coming for us, or not? If it is, let it be a swift death. So that there is no suffering, and without shrapnel.” Because if there is shrapnel, there will be infection, and sooner or later a person will die anyway.
When you go around the city, it’s absolutely terrifying. You look to one side, shelling has killed three people, they are laying there exactly how they died, and have been there like that for three days. I walk past this same place later and the bodies have been taken away somewhere but the pools of blood remain. You walk and see in someone’s yard another three people who have been killed. On the way to a neighbor’s there is another dead body; dogs have already chewed off the man’s legs. Another charred body of a man burned to death from shelling that started a fire…
We risked our lives to try to leave Mariupol. Why? Because on the 28th I left to visit two more young families to deliver food. Before I left, I asked my wife, maybe I’ll make one more trip? She said she was scared for me.
I went and visited these two families. On my way home, in the direction of my neighborhood I see black smoke. Then I see my wife standing on the curb with two suitcases and our documents, and our house is on fire. There is no chance of putting the fire out. There’s no water, absolutely no one can help. For many, many of our brothers and sisters, people with big families, their homes are either destroyed by bombing, or burned down. So we see, our home is burned down, the church is burned down, many of the people we know have evacuated from the city. So we took this as a sign that it’s our time to leave.
We want to thank you. We were received very warmly in Zaporizhzhia, then were brought here to Rivne and got help here. Our car was essentially destroyed. When we were being bombed, shrapnel did a lot of damage to our car. But it was at least still able to drive somewhat.
There are still a number of people who remain in Mariupol. People evacuate when possible, but there are some that have not been able to leave, including some people from our church: three young families that we are praying can find a way to evacuate, and some elderly families as well.. We don’t know how they are doing.
Other areas around Mariupol are suffering too. Many, many, many russians have come and occupied, and terrible things are happening. For example, the Azovstal steel plant was bombed – craters are 4 meters deep. Another bombed dropped near our church - the crater is 5 meters deep, 15 meters wide. It’s terrifying to see, terrifying to live through. We’ve lost people from our community.
(The longer account has been edited a bit here for clarity and brevity; I use direct quotes and translations when possible.)
Vasyl and Anna’s heavily damaged car, with which they were able to evacuate from Mariupol.
As Vasyl told his story, it was with great pain in his voice that he corrected himself when he spoke of his church. Present tense was changed to past tense, “is” to “was”. He spoke about his community with such fondness and warmth, and with tears in his eyes he talked about how they loved one another. How when he was finally out of Mariupol and opened Viber (a popular messaging app in Ukraine) he had close to 300 messages from his community and congregants checking in. All of these people are now scattered not just throughout Ukraine, but already in many different countries.
After Vasyl spoke, his wife Anna told of one family. It was a family in their church they were supporting with six kids, and the seventh had just been born this year. They were from Azerbaijan. When the bombing started the mom took all her kids to the basement, but she herself had to run out to get milk for the baby. While outside, during the shelling she was hit in the head and killed instantly. She leaves behind all her children. They were going daily to bring them food as they sheltered.
“Please pray for them. There are many stories like this.”
They ended their sharing with prayer. Vasyl prayed for the people of Mariupol that are still trapped there, that God would somehow feed people and warm them.
He prayed for quick deaths with as little suffering as possible.
And he prayed those ancient but now heartbreakingly fitting words, literally,
“…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”.
Right now, Mariupol is surrounded by russian forces and is under constant heavy shelling. Twenty thousand people have already died in this city alone. A city the size of Miami. The situation is extremely dire. Hundreds of residents have sought shelter in the safest place that remained — with the Ukrainian army at the Azovstal steel plant. The same plant Vasyl made reference to. The russian occupants know civilians are sheltering there and purposefully continue to bomb the plant. On April 20, planned humanitarian corridors were not successful.
But, Mariupol is not yet captured. Surrendering to an enemy who dehumanizes you to then torture, enslave, or kill you and your family is not an option.
Mariupol is Ukraine. Mariupol needs help now.
