How a young mother and baby survived two months trapped underground in 'apocalyptic' Mariupol

In the deep, dark maze of tunnels under Mariupol's Azovstal Steelworks, new mother Hanna filmed in the dark as she and her baby sheltered there with some 1,000 other people for more than two months .

In the end, those civilians submerged in this subterranean hell, seeking shelter after the Russian siege of the southern Ukrainian port city at the start of the war, survived on a spoonful of pasta, salt and of water as the relentless bombs obliterated this last damp bastion of fierce resistance.

“The children were very hungry,” she says. "They drew pictures of food."

The 25-year-old teacher, married for only a year, had said goodbye to her husband, Kyrylo, who had left to fight and was stationed elsewhere in this maze of bunkers.

Hanna had to say goodbye to her struggling husband Kyrylo

Hanna's baby in the bunker

He was only able to visit her and their son, Svyatoslav, twice, bringing diapers, food and a book – Robinson Crusoe, his favourite. Tiny Svyatoslav was the youngest person fighting for life in this isolated darkness, which quickly felt like an abandoned island.

“You wake up and realize this is not a dream, this is your life, this is all you have and maybe you will spend your last days here,” Hanna recalls.< /p>

"When you're there, time disappears. You can't tell day from night.

"The days feel like a great groundhog day."

She and her son were eventually evacuated after a bomb collapsed the works, burying them under rubble, killing other people.

Her husband, along with his unit, was later evacuated after Russian shelling finally took hold of the brave town in May. He is now a prisoner and we are not using Hanna's last name for his protection.

Hanna's testimony and harrowing images form part of a new BBC Panorama documentary, Mariupol: The People's Story, which airs tomorrow night.