In Mariupol, Ukraine, a lacking individuals web site reveals the toll of the Russian conflict
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A 76-year-old woman, last seen in her basement, is shown smiling in front of a bed of tulips. A missing teenager who may have fled with neighbors is pictured in a dress holding a bouquet of flowers. Then there is the elderly couple whose house burned down in the fighting. And a mother-son duo who haven’t been heard from in a month.
These are just some of the hundreds of leads users have posted over the past week on a new website aimed at tracking down the missing residents of Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port city that Russian forces besieged for much of the war.
The website, Mariupol Life, was the brainchild of computer programmer and Mariupol resident Dmitry Cherepanov, who was forced to flee the city in March after days of shelling cut power and water supplies. Cherepanov, 45, wanted to use his skills to help people find information about their missing loved ones, he said this week via Telegram.
Its growing database is easy to use: it contains names, addresses, dates of birth and sometimes the last known whereabouts of missing persons. Users can follow a missing person’s profile for updates, or send direct messages or comments to others who have posted. But it has also given a glimpse of the sheer scale of the human tragedy in Mariupol, where countless people have been killed or have disappeared.
According to Ukrainian officials, as many as 20,000 civilians may have been killed in Mariupol — a city where the pre-war population was about 450,000 — since the invasion began. Russian President Vladimir Putin this week claimed victory over Mariupol despite a contingent of Ukrainian fighters hiding in a sprawling steel mill on the outskirts of the city.
Control of Mariupol would give Russia a vital land bridge between Russian territory and the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The city was once a thriving coastal center and center of iron and steel production. Now it is not clear how many residents have fled or disappeared. In the week since Cherepanov started Mariupol Life, it has received more than 12,000 visits and now has more than 1,000 missing persons entries. There are another 1,000 posts for those who were evacuated, including some residents who were forced to emigrate to Russia.
In one post, 62-year-old Marchuk Alexander Yosipovich is shown in some sort of military uniform. His photo is accompanied by a short, painful note:
“I’m looking for my father. Needs humanitarian aid. food, water.”
Another contains an image of a bespectacled woman sitting on a bench. She is 70 years old and has been missing since March 21.
“I’m looking for [my] Mom,” the post reads. “She wore a light jacket, a white hat, [and] move poorly after a stroke.”
Even Cherepanov has posted his own entries, including one for a friend who went missing while leaving home to fetch water. For him, the mounting losses have become deeply personal. Just hours after he posted this week, Cherepanov received information that his friend had been killed.
“I lost everything I loved, everything that was dear to me in Mariupol, where I was born and lived 45 years of my life,” he said.
Cherepanov’s house, the block where he lived, the large, red-roofed theater where hundreds took refuge, and the retro computer museum he built were all destroyed, he said.
But even in the dark, Mariupol Life has brought some light.
A new comment appeared on a post seeking information about a family who disappeared after their home caught fire.
“Get in touch,” said the commentator. “All live.”
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