Ukraine, alarm from Mariupol: “Too many corpses, risk of health catastrophe”

“There is an epidemiological catastrophe in Mariupol. In March, there was a cemetery in every courtyard. The temperatures were below freezing then but now it is hot in the city, and not all of those graves have been moved to mass graves. The government is looking for it. of burying the bodies, but it is not possible to cope. In addition there is no water, what is there is polluted and there are stray animals around. The risk of a cholera epidemic is very high “. To tell Adnkronos, in an exclusive and touching interview, is Yevhen Tuzov, an activist from Mariupol who has taken care of the refugees of the city under siege since the beginning of the war, looking after them together with a team of over six thousand, and has now prepared a reception camp in Dnipro. “All the people who have been shocked by Bucha or Irpin, know that when you can enter Mariupol you will really find out what happened there they will be shocked – says Tuzov – To be clear, Bucha is the size of the Azovstal steel mill, Mariupol is much larger and the level of destruction was massive. ” At the moment, explains the activist, “there is still no centralized water. What there is is the water of the wells, where the underground water table passes and the effluvium of the rotting bodies is released. very dangerous, you can only imagine what will happen in a few weeks “. For about a month, Yevhen has created a reception center in Dnipro in a gym,” where I recovered some mattresses and made arrangements with a restaurant for meals “, there explains. And he tells, above all, an episode that happened in Mariupol that affected him forever. “One day a ten-day-old newborn was brought to the shelter where I manage, wrapped in a jacket. He was so small that, when they put him on the bench, he was about to be crushed by an elderly man who wanted to sit down and didn’t have it. saw. He was covered in soot, because he had been hit by an incendiary bomb thrown at his burning building. After a few days he was sick. We took him to the hospital dodging the bombs. Later, we learned that there is in that hospital. it was a woman who had come from the same address as the baby … and we found out it was the mother. Her husband and other children had died in the fire, and she was able to reunite with her newly born baby. ” The Ukrainian activist launches a heartfelt appeal to the international community. “Attention towards Mariupol and Ukraine is dropping sharply. People are tired of hearing about the war, they want to live in peace and start acting as they do with homeless people on the street, they turn away. Yevhen at Adnkronos- We are receiving less humanitarian aid. People are forgetting about us. ” Researching the net “I saw that the focus on Azov’s military is now the same as it was when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. If the world thinks this can end, it is wrong, it will be everyone’s turn. in one way or another “. The activist clarifies:” If a bully comes to your house and steals your wallet and uses violence, nothing prevents him from doing the same in someone else’s house. Italy, France, Germany , they should keep the attention threshold high “. The activist, born and raised in Mariupol, where “I know everyone. I was the coach of a national wrestling team”, tells us, explains what he feels about seeing the city in these conditions. “What does a son feel when he sees the destroyed bodies of his father and mother? What does a father feel when he sees the torn body of his son? This can be compared to what I feel. Everything we loved has been destroyed. I am Mariupol “. And he concludes with a wish: “What would I want now? I would like a new Mariupol to be built and what is there to remain as a ‘museum city’, where it was compulsory for all students to come and visit the horrors it has suffered. everyone could imagine that once there was life behind those destroyed windows. In such a way that no one, no one can ever make a war again “. (by Ilaria Floris)