A photojournalist who captured images of people escaping Mariupol said he saw taped-up cars, fleeing vehicles with a signpost saying 'baby,' and people in floods of tears

The photojournalist said there was a line of around 20-30 cars in the entrance to the large shopping mall, all of which were packed with people, their pets, and their belongings.

"Most of the cars arriving had many people in them, 4 sitting cars sometimes had 6 people … every space was filled with stuff. People just tried to fit as much as they could," he told Insider.

Emre said that almost every car he saw had a white ribbon tied to their mirrors and a paper sign stuck to the window bearing the word "baby."

The photojournalist said that people were often "too emotional" to speak with him. Those he did speak to said they faced long journeys — around two days by car — from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, and were often stopped along the way by Russian fighters.

Many had to spend nights sleeping in their car, where they had to keep the heating off to save fuel, he told Insider.

"They didn't have much gas, so they didn't really turn on the heat … it was freezing for them," he said.

The woman pictured above arrived in a group of eight or nine people with a truck full of belongings, Emre said. "She looked at me at first and smiled, then all of a sudden she started crying," he added.

People arrived at the shopping mall car parking lot by car, Emre said. Taped-up cars that had been destroyed by shelling were a "very common scene," he said.

"They all tape them, sometimes they use paper bags to put it in the windows," Emre said.

Several attempts at ceasefires in the port city have failed, making it harder for citizens to escape through safe routes.

Russia's Ministry of Defense called on Ukrainian forces to surrender by early Monday morning and offered to open humanitarian corridors, but Ukrainian officials — who rejected the request — have accused Russia of bombing these passageways.

People who Emre spoke with told him their cars were shelled "for no reason."

Emre — who had been situated in Mariupol a month before the invasion on February 24 — said people had no heating and little food in the weeks after the attack.

"They say it was really cold there; they basically had no heating for a long time. They didn't have much food. A person told me they didn't really eat any meat; they couldn't find anything," Emre told Insider.

People often hugged each other to keep warm, he added.

Emre told Insider he had "good memories" of Mariupol in the month before the invasion, adding that nobody really thought the attack would happen. The photojournalist left the city three days after the invasion on February 27.

Inside the shopping mall, Emre said the corridors were "really crowded."

The shops were closed but people were able to have some coffee and food, he said.

The woman pictured above was quite emotional, Emre told Insider.

"One second she would be laughing and they would be chatting and then she would just start crying and get really emotional. She did that like three times in maybe 10 or 15 minutes," Emre added.

"A lot of people like that, especially older people, would just start crying," he said.