From Battered Mariupol Steel Plant, Videos of Desperate Pleas for Help

The footage shows a child wearing a diaper crafted out of tape and plastic bags, asleep in a moldy room. An elderly woman with a bandaged head is seen dressed in a uniform jacket, once worn by steel plant workers, as she shakes uncontrollably. Children make plaintive requests. “We want to go home” a girl says. “We want to see the sunshine.”

These scenes are from videos shared online in recent days by the Azov regiment, a unit in the Ukrainian military, which says they were taken in the bunkers beneath the sprawling Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol. The Times could not independently verify the exact location of the videos, but the interiors appear consistent with the design of the plant, and a former employee confirmed the images seemed to have been created there.

The plant has become the last refuge for thousands of trapped Ukrainian fighters and civilians. There is no escape, and little chance of rescue. Watch the Video

@nytimes