Five-year-old Arthur lost the ability to speak when the bombardment of Mariupol began.
Five-year-old Arthur stopped speaking the day the bombardment began in Mariupol, Ukraine. During the first few days of shelling, Arthur’s 23-year-old mother, Miranda, had to shield her terrified son from the bomb blasts with her body.
« It felt like I was being blown away by the blast wave and I almost tore my hands off, clinging to the handrails of the stairwells where we were hiding », she recalls. « We had no electricity, water, gas, heat or mobile connection. There was no bread or medicine. »
For two weeks, Arthur and his mother hid in a theater. Day after day, evacuation through human corridors was delayed.
« The most terrible thing », says Miranda, « is when I have to say to him: ‘In the morning, we will go to a kind world.
