Monday, March 14, like every evening, the inhabitants of Mykolaiv (Ukraine) take refuge in shelters or underground to escape Russian missiles. In this port city in southern Ukraine, the basement of a neighborhood school has become a shelter for a hundred people. There were 500 of them just a few days ago, but most of them have left, chased away by the persistent bombardments.
In one of these cellars in the damp basement, where a France 2 team went, a couple of retirees are holed up. They came to hide with their cat because they are afraid to stay alone at home. “When you’re 62 and you don’t sleep in your bed, what do you think of that?”asks Lyubov, the woman. “In the 21st century, everyone should be able to sleep in their own bed.” Immersed in a thriller, Ludmila tries to forget the outside world and the sounds of war. In the shelter, no one sleeps. Thanks to the surveillance camera of a resident, some control a screen to spot the strikes.
At 10 p.m., the sound of the bombardments resumes. “They send the bombs on civilians or sleeping quarters“, describes Ivan, a former gas station boss in charge of order in the shelter. At the end of the night, in the early morning, some want to go out, but strikes that fell not far away make the group go back underground again. . “I’m going to leave the country, I’m too scared“, confides a young girl, who has decided to leave. With others, she joins chartered buses for Moldova. A forced exile, three hours away.
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