Dmitry has been living in a refugee center in Zaporizhia for a week. He and his family left Mariupol a month ago, but their journey to join the free zone began as for many in Mangouch, in the filtration camp created by the Russians to control all the civilians who want to leave Mariupol. “They take our fingerprints, check our passports, but above all they put everyone under very strong pressure”explains Dmitry.
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In southern Ukraine, the city of Zaporijia, very close to the regions occupied by the Russian army, is currently hosting more than 100,000 displaced people. Many come from Mariupol where they are fleeing the violence of the bombardments and the siege imposed by the Russians for a month and a half. But there are also many of them trying to escape the climate of tension created by the Russian soldiers in the occupied zones.
“These are not necessarily physical attacks, but psychological violence, with very long and aggressive interrogations, strip searches to check tattoos or a tax of 400 dollars per car. All that to let out a dozen a day only on the hundreds who are waiting.”
Dmitry, resident of Mariupol who took refuge in Zaporizhiaat franceinfo
Beyond the Mangouch camp, there is life in the occupied cities. An old man with a lost look, who arrived here alone, tells us how in his town of Energodar he was humiliated, beaten and shot at by young soldiers drunk on their own power. Sometimes the stories of the Russian occupation are even more tragic: cases of unexplained disappearances number in the dozens. The one told to us by Natalya, the coordinator of the reception center for the displaced, gives an insight into the tragedies that have yet to be discovered. “I have a friend who went to the Russian zone south of Zaporizhia to look for his son and his girlfriend who had disappeared.says Natalya. He ended up finding the burned bones of the young woman, and her burned son too, who apparently had survived a few days but was already dead when his father found him. This father took a lot of risks to find his son and to bury him with dignity, alongside his friend.”
Natalya, who receives dozens of displaced people in her center every day, collects many disturbing and tragic stories of people molested, extorted, even killed, on the road to exile. But to grasp the real extent of this violence of the occupation, it will be necessary to wait, as around kyiv, for a very hypothetical withdrawal of the Russian army from these regions of southern Ukraine.