Bombs shrieked overhead as Anastasia Piddubna’s contractions quickened. The war had robbed the hospital basement where she was in labour of both power and water.
The only warmth to protect her from the -5c degree chill blasting through holes in the walls was a coat flung over her shivering body; the only light in the makeshift birthing centre in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol was the torch from smartphones.
Having been evacuated here after surviving Russia’s barbaric attack on