"Just put the body outside"

Marina Levinchuk said she received an alarming text message from the local authorities in the besieged city of Mariupol several days ago, before she decided to flee. “If somebody dies in your family,” she said, recalling the message in her own words, “just put the body outside, cover it, tie up the hands and the legs and leave it outside.”

“That’s what’s going on in Mariupol now,” she said of the city, currently ringed by Russian forces pounding it with bombs, missiles and artillery. “There are just bodies lying in the streets.

“There is no water, no heating, no gas,” she continued in a video call on WhatsApp on Wednesday. “And they are collecting snow, melting the snow, and boiling the snow.”…

“There was shelling all the time. There was bombing,” said Juliia Diderko, a 33-year-old journalist from Mariupol who slipped out of the city just after it was encircled by Russian soldiers. “If anyone can help, please do this,” she said. “Please do this right now. Because people are dying.”

Residents are doing what they can to survive, for themselves and others in need, Ms. Levinchuk said. Trees are being cut down and food is being prepared outside, because there is no electricity or gas.