"There were corpses in every courtyard" says Alyona, easily recalling the horrors of the siege of Mariupol, horrors her young family lived through "for 100 days". Alonya lived in the southern Ukrainian port city as it was surrounded by Moscow's forces, hiding in a basement with around 60 children. Even now, rebuilding their lives far from the fighting, in Moscow, the family is haunted by the two-month ordeal. "My daughter was talking around and she saw a dog eating a corpse. She would ask me: 'Mum, what's going on? Why is a dog eating a man?' And I still don't know what to tell her."

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