Holding each other’s hands and balloons in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine, the new pupils marched in for their first day at Mariupol’s School Number One.

They were dressed in their best clothes, ribbons fluttering in the girls’ hair and the boys’ ties a little askew, as the older children gave them gifts of pens, books and flowers and performed songs and poems celebrating school life.

“The children understand some of what’s going on, and what they experienced at home in Donetsk, bombs and explosions, has made them nervous,” said Irina, as her daughter Marina joined fellow pupils in the sun-filled schoolyard.

“We live near Donetsk airport and after it was bombed we came here. We’ve been here all summer,” said Irina’s father, Volodymyr.

“Marina’s scared of loud noises now. But she’s not alone here. There are plenty of other children from Donetsk and other places suffering in the conflict.”

Dozens of children starting at School Number One yesterday had moved with their families to Mariupol to escape fighting further north between Ukrainian forces and rebels who want the country’s southeast to join Russia.

Strategically important

This strategically important port city on the Azov Sea was peaceful until a week ago, when insurgents – allegedly backed by Russian soldiers and armour – took the town of Novoazovsk about 40km to the east.

Now the militants say their next target is Mariupol, control of which would give them access to the sea and open up the road to Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in March.

“The council said they’d advise us what to do if the worst happens, if there was an attack,” said Lena.

“But they also promised that there would be members of the national guard here today, and at all the schools for the first day – and they’re not,’” added her husband, Andrei. “We don’t know what to believe, or whom to trust.”

The start of the school year was always celebrated in the Soviet Union, and across most of Russia’s old empire “Knowledge Day” is still a special occasion.

“But this year parents are asking about bomb shelters and the state of the cellar, if we are ready for an attack,” said maths teacher Natalya Vasilyevna.

The music stopped abruptly and the lines of children, balloons bobbing in their hands, stood a little straighter and stopped giggling as the headmaster stepped to the microphone.

Knowledge

Speaking Russian, as almost everyone does in southeast Ukraine, he spoke of how “even in the most difficult situations, children must go to school and get their education. Knowledge is the most important thing.”

When he finished, Ukraine’s national anthem surged from the loudspeakers, and a boy and girl marched around the schoolyard holding the country’s flag, its bright bands representing a clear sky above golden fields.

Then, in the culmination of a ceremony beloved by generations across the former Soviet Union, a burly boy hoisted a little girl on to his shoulder, and with a bashful smile that soon burst into a laugh, she rang a bell to start the school year.

“No one knows what’s ahead,” said Dmitry (16) as the parents filed out of the schoolyard, and a couple flinched as a yellow balloon burst behind them.

“This war seems to be about money and power and ordinary people don’t matter. But we have to be ready for anything – my family has packed a bag of essentials in case we have to leave quickly or hide from bombing.”

A short drive from School Number One, Galina Odnorog was less fatalistic.

“We need the world’s help to save us from Russia,” she said, a blue-and-yellow ribbon tied around the arm of her camouflage fatigues in the headquarters of the New Mariupol civic group.

“We need Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, medicines – everything. And we need the Russian people to stop [president Vladimir] Putin. We’re planning a rally in Mariupol tomorrow and I will plead for Russia’s mothers to stand up to him.”

Russian activists believe thousands of the country’s soldiers may have been deployed secretly to Ukraine, and hundreds already killed and injured. Moscow insists that only volunteers have crossed the border to help Ukraine’s separatists.

“Mariupol is ready to defend itself,” insisted Odnorog. “Hardly anyone has left, volunteers are digging trenches around the city and no one supports the militants.”

People have steadily left the city, however, many residents say they don’t greatly care who controls it as long as there is peace, and there is no military presence to suggest Kiev is determined to protect the port from rebels.

“Mariupol could be attacked any time,” said Dmytro Korchinsky, a nationalist leader fighting with pro-government forces. “We have hardly any forces, tanks or artillery here, but the city is very important. We have to fight for it.”