Natalia Demish may be among those fortunate to escape the horrors of ravaged Mariupol last month but she still lives in constant worry. While the 40-year-old Ukrainian mother is now in relative safety in the city of Dnipro, Demish has been cut off from her 21-year-old son, Yuri.
The two of them got separated when she fled the ongoing fighting. According to Demish, Yuri has now been forcibly deported by Vladimir Putin's army to Russia. Demish said that her main concern right now is that Yuri will be forced by the enemy to fight against his own country of Ukraine.
Demish's story is not unique to her with many Ukrainians accusing Russian troops of forcibly deporting large numbers of Ukraine's civilians to their country. If their accusations are true, these could be considered a war crime under international law, according to the United Nations.
Mariupol residents in danger of dying because of dwindling resources
Kyiv has directly accused Russia of blocking Ukraine and other countries' efforts to send humanitarian aid to the besieged city of Mariupol. Kyiv said that even buses to evacuate civilians to Ukrainian-controlled territory has been blocked by Russian troops.
According to local officials, the city of Mariupol has now been under attack for nearly two months with thousands of its residents killed by the Russians. Reuters reported that many more are in danger of dying with Mariupol's remaining residents left with virtually no electricity, food, or water because of the Russian blockade.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on Thursday, April 21, that more than 140,000 residents of Mariupol had been evacuated in the past month through humanitarian corridors, also known as temporary demilitarized zones.
Demish, who was an accountant before the war started, said that she had spent a total of 34 days hiding in a basement in Mariupol, staying there with her husband, his parents and his two daughters. With their resources dwindling, the family decided to escape to the central city of Zaporizhzhia on March 29 in a convoy of vehicles.
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Demish's son deported to Russian village 675 miles away from Mariupol
Unfortunately for Demish, she was cut off from her son at the time. Yuri was living with her former husband in a Ukrainian neighborhood that was badly damaged by the bombings. The heavy shelling left Yuri and the other residents in that area with no phone or internet connection. With no way to reach her son, Demish left without Yuri.
Demish told NBC News that she finally heard from her son later that day but it was not entirely good news. Yuri said that he and his father had walked to the city of Novoazovsk, which has been under the control of Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
The news Demish was dreading came on April 4, when Yuri told her that they are forcibly being transferred to Russia. Yuri told his mother that they were put on a train. Yuri called his mother again on April 15, telling her that they are now staying in the village of Semyonovka in Russia's Nizhegorodsky Oblast, which is around 675 miles northeast of Mariupol.
