Daughter fears for midwife mother after Mariupol maternity hospital blast

The daughter of a midwife is anxiously waiting for news of her mother following the Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Mariia Moskalenko, 28, fled Mariupol with her younger brother on March 3 after failing to convince her 50-year-old mother and 55-year-old father to leave their home.

She said the last time she heard from her parents was just hours before a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital that killed three people, including a child.

“I can’t call them because they only call when they have connection…. so I’m just waiting and hoping that they will call again,” she told the PA news agency.

“Because my mother is a midwife and my father owns a car, they are helping people and they can’t just leave them.

“There are a lot of people who, for example, are too old or who have babies and they are scared to leave under the bombing and falling rockets.”

Ms Moskalenko does not know if her mother was working at the hospital when the bomb hit.

She said it is down to “luck” if civilians survive the airstrikes that have already devastated schools and hospitals in her hometown.

“The Russians are bombing everything. You have to be lucky to survive from these circumstances,” she said.

The day before the Russian invasion on February 24, Ms Moskalenko’s parents had organised a family dinner that was full of “talking and laughing”.

The next day, she said, she was awoken by the sound of explosions.

Speaking to PA via Zoom, Ms Moskalenko held up a fragment from a missile that exploded outside her home just days before her escape from the city.

“Our house was lucky… I have this part of the rocket and it could have killed someone but there was no one in that room,” she said.

“We were all so scared and we understood that we were no longer in a safe place.

“I didn’t feel anything for a day because I just was very shocked.

“When the water, light, heating and gas got shut down in our district… I understood that it was our last chance to leave.”

Ms Moskalenko said she has been living in a safe house with her 16-year-old brother after fleeing Ukraine but could not say where for safety reasons.

She said the emotional toll on her sibling, who is too young to be recruited to fight, has been a concern.

“I understood that if he lived in those circumstances any longer it will ruin his his brain – his emotions and so on,” she said.

“Even when we left I saw that he was very shaken and he doesn’t have any connections here. All his friends have stayed.

“He’s recovered a bit now, after a lot of sleeping and eating, and that is a relief.”

Ms Moskalenko said she has avoided watching the news to protect her mental health but will check the local Mariupol news channel to see if her parent’s street has been bombed.

“When I talked to my parents they tried to cheer me… they said they imagine that the bombs going off over their heads are just fireworks,” she said.

“For me, it is really amazing how people are holding up in this situation but it is also really scary.

“There is a humanitarian catastrophe happening in Ukraine and they need the world to help them.”