Al Jazeera wrote about the Azerbaijani family living in Ukraine, their problems during the war, and their sacrifices, Report informs.
Al Jazeera reported that the fighting continues in Ukraine, and the survivors of Mariupol are rebuilding life in Kyiv.
The explosion Azerbaijani national Ulvi Zulfili witnessed in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol made him stutter for days.
In mid-March, hundreds of civilians, including children, thronged the basement of Mariupol’s drama theatre, hiding from incessant Russian shelling that was killing hundreds of people a day.
Even though two signs saying “children” had been drawn in meters-long letters near the theatre, a Russian fighter jet bombed it on March 16.
As many as 600 people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials and media reports. Russia denied carrying out the attack, saying Kyiv staged it from within the building.
On that gloomy, cold morning, Zulfili biked to downtown Mariupol to look for formula for his friend’s newborn son, whose stressed-out mother was unable to produce breast milk.
He saw how a cruise missile hit the white theatre with marble columns. A mushroom of smoke and dust rose up twice as high as the nearby supermarket.
He was transfixed by horror – and could not hear a sound.
“The strangest moment was when you see a picture but don’t hear it,” the 26-year-old told Al Jazeera. “You can’t understand whether you’re alive or not.”
“In a moment, the sound reaches you with the blast wave. It almost rips the clothes off you. And you understand that you are alive and need to run away,” he said.
Days after Al Jazeera interviewed him in mid-December, Mariupol’s Moscow-installed authorities razed what remained of the theatre.
Aljazeera said he arrived there from Azerbaijan at age four and can still recall moments of his early childhood – “riding a horsie” and seeing oil derricks that made his South Caucasus homeland one of the world’s oldest oil producers.
But his father, Elshad, did not want his son to grow up and die in the war that scarred Azerbaijan.
At the same time, the armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s was touched upon. Despite the signing of a ceasefire between the two countries in 1994, it is noted that almost every year, fightings break out.
Elshad Zulfili opened a grocery store in Mariupol, a city of 500,000 people that seemed like a tranquil backwater west of the Russian border.
Elshad died of a heart attack in 2005 in his shop, and Ulvi eventually became the breadwinner of the family.
Zulfili’s neighborhood was targeted and damaged far less than the apartment buildings in central Mariupol, but his family still chose to sleep in their ice-cold basement and began every morning by making a fire, boiling water, and making tea in a samovar.
Zulfili always got some of it to an elderly neighbor who could barely walk after surgery.
War brought all their neighbors together as they helped one another with water, food, and firewood.
Zulfili would drive to springs by the sea, and each neighbor would put their plastic bottles and canisters in the boot of his car to fill up.
Finding a place to live proved difficult, but after paying a sizeable deposit, they moved into an apartment in a northern Kyiv suburb.
“Mum is psyching out because she can’t find a job, because she can’t help somehow,” he said.
Zulfilli’s girlfriend went to Germany for the winter, and he lives with his 56-year-old mother, Irade, who is torn by homesickness, boredom, and a desire to contribute financially.