ENT specialist Irina Dagaeva spent two weeks in March in the building of the Mariupol Philharmonic, where around 1200 people were hiding from shelling. Among them, the woman was the only medical worker. Irina provided assistance to the wounded, saved infants brought from a bombed maternity hospital by the Russians, and searched for medicines, which seemed impossible to find under those circumstances.
The woman managed to escape with her grandchildren first to Zaporizhzhia and then to Lviv, where she now works at the 'I am Mariupol' center, created specifically for displaced persons from the city completely destroyed by the Russians. In an interview with 'Telegraph', the doctor with 45 years of experience spoke about the horrors in the long-suffering Mariupol.
'A shell hit the apartment building where my daughter lived'I didn't want to leave my patients. After all, I knew I was needed, says Irina Dagaeva. I love my hospital, where I worked for 45 years. When the full-scale war began, I stayed in the city and, despite the constant shelling, continued going to work.
After a shell hit the apartment building where my daughter lived, she moved in with me along with her two four-year-old daughters. My house was intact, but there was no water, heat, or electricity. And when craters from shells began forming near my house, it became clear that it was no longer safe to stay here with the children. We decided to leave, but I didn’t even pack my things, I was sure I would take my family and return immediately. There was no mobile communication in the city anymore, but rumors of a humanitarian corridor circulated among the locals. So, we tied white rags to our cars and drove into the city center, to the infamous drama theater.
When we arrived, we saw a huge number of cars, but there was no corridor. Shelling began. People ran into the drama theater. We initially rushed in too, but there was no place to sit due to the overwhelming number of people. After standing for half an hour with children in our arms, we took the risk to drive a little further to the city philharmonic. At that moment, fewer people were there. The cloakroom attendant recognized me; he turned out to be my patient. He offered us a place in the cloakroom. We thought we would just wait out the shelling. However, we ended up staying there for two weeks.
'We found medicines in bombed pharmacies'Irina recounts that she was the only doctor in the philharmonic. Medicines were found, in particular, in bombed pharmacies.
People were in distress, scared, remembers Irina. Children, pensioners with chronic illnesses, handicapped individuals. Many were with cats, dogs, parrots, guinea pigs, lizards... People didn’t abandon their pets; they remained humane until the end. I was the only doctor there. To provide help, I needed medications, which were lacking. The philharmonic was not the right place for any medicine. And the number of people kept increasing. Some with shrapnel wounds and bleeding, some with a high fever, others urgently needed insulin... So we went to search for medicines. We were two desperate men and I. They took me along because they didn’t know what medications were needed. We found medicines particularly in bombed pharmacies. We entered through broken windows and grabbed whatever we could see.
'Each day, we had one small glass of water'The doctor also explained how they managed the issues of food and water, and milk for infants from the bombed maternity hospital.
We found food and water approximately the same way as medicines - everyone brought what they could, continues the doctor. We hadn’t seen bread since March 2. There were only puffs - flatbreads made from flour and water, fried on a grill. But there were too few of these puffs, and we only distributed them to children. The water we were able to find was, of course, also insufficient. Each person had 200 milliliters per day - that’s one small glass.
The hardest part came when children from the bombed maternity hospital, bombed by the Russians, began to arrive. Newborn infants with umbilical clamps. And their mothers with postpartum hemorrhages, without milk. It’s understandable - where would the milk come from, if a woman isn't eating or drinking, and an aerial bomb is dropped on the maternity hospital? And how long can a newborn survive without food? I had three such babies.
I exchanged milk with the local residents. When people from nearby houses came looking for medicine, I would say, 'What can you give me in exchange for this?' They would ask what I needed. I would reply that I needed everything. Some brought a jar of crystallized honey, some cookies. And one elderly woman found baby formula in a destroyed house. I fed the infants with it using a pipette.
Irina admits that among the residents of Mariupol, who sat in bomb shelters and basements for weeks, there were nervous breakdowns, and even suicide attempts occurred. Work helped her to keep herself together.
I had no time to be afraid or suffer - more and more people came (rumors spread that there was a doctor and some food in the philharmonic), says the woman. Perhaps, 40 years of working in surgery played a role; I didn’t have despair, I was composed and knew what needed to be done.
'The Russians scared us, saying the road to Zaporizhzhia was mined'Irina Dagaeva managed to escape the city, reminiscent of an apocalypse, with her small granddaughters on March 19.
After a shell hit the house across from the philharmonic, we realized that we would be next, adds Irina. And we weren’t even in a basement - it was simply a building, and it had large stained glass windows. So people just jumped into their cars and drove off - without any humanitarian corridors, at their own risk.
On the way, we encountered an enemy checkpoint. The Russians scared us, saying the road to Zaporizhzhia was mined and we would blow up. But we kept driving. In Zaporizhzhia, we saw bread for the first time in three weeks. And even months later, when we were already in Lviv and could buy various products, the grandchildren would ask: 'Grandma, give us bread. We don’t want to starve.'