“I was afraid of being spotted and I was cold”

Flee Russian firepower at all costs. It was March 16, around 7 p.m., on the beach of Pechanka, less than ten kilometers south of Mariupol in Ukraine.

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Night falls that day and Dmitri puts on a wetsuit. He attaches plastic bottles to his body to better float and he throws himself into the water. “I swam about 800 meters and was exhausted.says Dmitry. I was afraid of being spotted and I was cold. I was chattering my teeth. If the Russians ever saw me, then I became a target and they were going to shoot me. I came out of the water Melekine, four kilometers away. A grandmother and a grandpa took me in, they offered me a borscht and a glass of alcohol. They are the ones who then helped me to organize my departure by mini-bus.”

“When I arrived here in Lviv, I realized that it was worth taking this risk. I just wanted to run away from the war.”

Dmitri, Ukrainian

at franceinfo

A few hours earlier, the Mariupol theater was bombed. Hundreds of civilians die. Dmitri, who lived next door, helped evacuate injured people. A scene of horror that motivated his sudden departure. “It was panic, a moment of chaossays the Ukrainian. There were screams, cries for help, tears. I decided without thinking, on autopilot. I carried victims, I looked to the right, to the left to try to find survivors. There was flesh, blood and a lot of dead. That’s when I decided to leave.”

Dmitri is now a refugee in Lviv, in western Ukraine. He imagines returning as soon as he can to Mariupol. “But this timehe said with a nervous laugh, it will not be by swimming, but rather by boat”.