Exclusive: Witness to bombing of theatre fled by swimming along shoreline to reach Ukrainian-controlled territory
Dmitry Yurin was at home on 16 March when a Russian bomb struck Mariupol’s drama theatre. His flat in Prospect Mira was a couple of hundred metres away, across a square with a fountain. The theatre had become a capacious air raid shelter. Hundreds of women and children were inside.
“It was terrible, a massive blast, an enormous explosion. I heard cries and screams,” Yurin said. “I saw bodies and bits of bodies. I pulled one woman out, then a girl, and then a boy. All were hurt. The boy’s legs didn’t move. He was screaming. My hands were shaking. I was covered in blood.”