{"id":1411513,"date":"2022-03-30T20:30:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T00:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1411513"},"modified":"2022-03-30T20:30:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T00:30:36","slug":"eking-out-an-existence-and-mourning-the-dead-in-besieged-mariupol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/eking-out-an-existence-and-mourning-the-dead-in-besieged-mariupol\/","title":{"rendered":"Eking out an existence and mourning the dead in besieged Mariupol"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Feking-out-an-existence-and-mourning-the-dead-in-besieged-mariupol%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1411513&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-31T000433Z_1_LYNXNPEI2U006_RTROPTP_0_UKRAINE-CRISIS-MARIUPOL_1.jpg\" alt=\"Local residents cook food at the entrance to the basement of an apartment building in Mariupol\" \/><br \/>Metallurgist Viktor, 63, cooks food at the entrance to the basement of an apartment building during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 30, 2022. REUTERS\/Alexander Ermochenko<\/div>\n<p>March 31, 2022<\/p>\n<p>By Pavel Klimov<\/p>\n<p>MARIUPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) \u2013     Amid the burnt-out frames of shelled buildings and bare branches of trees, only a children\u2019s playground set, now abandoned, lends colour to this neighbourhood in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.<\/p>\n<p>The port city, which had a prewar population of more than 400,000, has been a strategic focus of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine that began five weeks ago, and has suffered near-constant bombardment.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 5,000 people have been killed, the mayor\u2019s office estimated on Monday, and about 170,000 people remain trapped amid ruins without food, heat, power or running water. Many more have fled. Reuters has been unable to verify the figures.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody seems to know someone who has been killed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn March 16, our friend was driving a car, and a bullet got him right in the throat. Five minutes later he was gone,\u201d said a man who gave his first name only as Pavel, standing next to a freshly covered grave adorned with a simple wooden cross, near his garage.<\/p>\n<p>The port city has become a mass grave as residents bury their neighbours and family members near the apartment buildings where they used to live.<\/p>\n<p>Pavel said he was with his friend Igor in the car at the time and only managed to take him home before he died. <\/p>\n<p>Mariupol has been targeted in an apparent attempt by Russia to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, and pro-Russian separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. It calls its actions a \u201cspecial operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Safe evacuation corridors have functioned only sporadically at best. Instead, residents who have been unable to leave the city hide in the basements of buildings and prepare what food they can find in the open.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cook what we find among neighbours. A bit of cabbage, a bit more of potatoes, we\u2019ve found tomato paste, some beetroot,\u201d said former steel worker Viktor. They cook using a rudimentary barbecue and sleep in a basement, which he termed their \u201cpeaceful oasis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have nowhere to take a shower, we are drinking water from God knows where,\u201d said a woman named Lyudmila, who was in the basement with Viktor. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot a life for a retiree,\u201d she said, smiling ruefully.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Pavel Klimov; Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing by Rosalba O\u2019Brien)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Metallurgist Viktor, 63, cooks food at the entrance to the basement of an apartment building during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 30, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}