From Mariupol to the USA: a family of refugees from Ukraine told what they had to go through to escape from the 'city of the dead'

A family of refugees from Mariupol went through shelling, hunger, Russian filtration camps and farewell to home - they told their story of fleeing the war in Ukraine with their 5-year-old daughter in their arms. The Skripchenko family now lives in San Diego, California. Voice of America.

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In a bright apartment in the southern California city of San Diego, the Skripchenko family recently lives. Five-year-old Anya sorts through her favorite toys while her parents, Alexander and Tanya, prepare tea and cake. Just a month ago, these little joys of life seemed utopian to them. Then they fought for life in their native Mariupol.

“We spent forty days under shelling without communication, water, food, without electricity,” says Alexander, a refugee from Mariupol.

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Alexander and his wife call their life in Mariupol before the war prosperous. They worked together at the Azovstal plant. The man also had his own car service, he ran a successful YouTube channel, where he told how to make equipment. They had an apartment and their own car. The family loved to walk around their hometown.

But with the arrival of the Russian army, the walks along the native streets ended, but terrible days in the ruins began.

Tatyana refuses to talk about those days; only Alexander gives interviews on camera. Their house was located in the Vostochnoye microdistrict, 20 km from the border with the “DPR”, from where Russian troops entered. The shelling was so strong that four days after the invasion, the family was forced to move to the city center, where Tatyana’s mother lived. However, her house did not have a basement.

“There was no choice - we were right in the house, lying on the floor, the glass was broken, it was frosty outside, there was zero temperature in the house, shells, debris ad infinitum, all this was flying from different directions. Since there were close battles, just in our area they were running through the streets, shooting from cannons, from machine guns. Everyone saw both the so-called “DPR” army and the Russian army,” shares Alexander.

The family, like thousands of other residents of Mariupol, found themselves in a blockade, the search for food began.

“On the third day we were there, a shell flew into the store. The store burned down, the people and everyone who was nearby... we got ourselves a bag of oatmeal, there was no point in getting a lot, because we didn’t have water,” recalls Alexander.

“On the third of March it snowed. Thank God, I ran along the street and collected snow to get water, I took as much of this water as I could into the bathtub, it slowly melted so I could cook something. But boiling is a strong word, because there are shellings. We cooked it all over a fire, but it was dangerous to go outside because they were shooting endlessly,” says Alexander Skripchenko.

While they survived with their mother, their apartment in the Eastern microdistrict turned into a conflagration.

But the turning point was the day when even my mother's house began to burn. They immediately decided to run away.

“There was nowhere to run, the only route was towards the DPR.” We walked eleven kilometers until we came across a Russian checkpoint. They said there was a curfew at seven and you couldn’t go, otherwise they’d shoot you. We found a destroyed house on the edge of the city, spent the night in the basement and went towards the “DPR”. We walked eleven kilometers, then a man - a man, also a civilian - picked us up, and so they took us to the nearest village,” recalls Alexander.

In the “DPR” the family saw how Russian filtration camps work, which were set up right in schools and homes.

“At the filtration... there are special services there who conducted interrogations. They examined the tattoos, whether there were bruises on the body, specific calluses from weapons, and interrogated. How do you feel about the army, did you take part in hostilities, about Azov, about the Nazis. The same questions were asked all the time,” says Alexander.

Alexander said that he had not fought, a simple worker. He says that they miraculously managed to get on the bus that brought them to Russia. In Taganrog we stayed with relatives.

The family left Taganrog for Sochi, from there to Turkey, and then to Mexico, through Mexico to Los Angeles, where they were received by Alexander's classmate. He says, even with all the circumstances, from Russia, unfortunately, there was a safer way to escape. After all, residents who used the green corridor to Ukraine were shot.

“I wanted to save my child and my wife. I had no other goals. I didn’t care at all which way, even if I ran to the sky so that they would stop shooting, so that the child and his wife would remain alive and unharmed,” says Alexander.

“I didn’t fight. I might have fought, but my thyroid gland was cut out, and I fall asleep... on hormones,” says the Mariupol resident.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York.

The family came to America with two suitcases and bitter memories. Friends and volunteers helped them find housing and money. They say he does not want to return to his hometown, which he is now.

“When I watch the video, the horror that they created, it really bothers me. But if someone said to go back, I would not agree. The city of the dead, where people were buried right in front of the house,” says Alexander Skripchenko.

Now in the USA Skripchenko is trying to build a new life in a new place from scratch.

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