The Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been suffering for weeks from a Russian siege and bombing. Improvised cemeteries are dug along the streets.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have bombed and besieged the important port city. Large parts of the city were destroyed.
The bombing of the city does not seem to ease:
– They keep attacking us. The city’s governor, Pavlo Kirilenko, told the BBC that shelling, air strikes and shootings were continuing in the city.
– Today we received information about the shooting of some of those who participated in collecting information and helping others to evacuate. There are dead among them.
He claims that the dead were people who had to move around the regions, and that the Russians must have known that these were civilians and unarmed.
“They are looking for any excuse they can find to shoot peaceful people,” Kirilenko says.
The humanitarian situation in Mariupol has long been described as catastrophic. People are starving due to lack of food and water. People with underlying illnesses are dying as a result of a lack of healthcare and stress from the stresses of war, Reuters reports.
according to financial times Is the famine in the city so bad that the people there are now slaughtering stray dogs for food. The newspaper also reproduces testimonies of scenes of stray dogs eating the remains of the dead in the streets that have not yet been buried.
– We’ve been in the basement for eleven days. We hope for the best: to live as human beings. Our apartment was destroyed. Everything is destroyed. We cook with fire. We still have some food and some firewood. In a week we will be nothing. Librarian Irina Shchenko, when speaking to Reuters on Sunday, asks what we should do next.
– All possible weapons
Before the war, Mariupol had a population of about 450,000, making it the tenth largest city in Ukraine. The city is located in the Donetsk region in the southeast of Ukraine.
Reports of violent street clashes broke out on Saturday in the city, as the Russian authorities moved into the city itself after the siege.
“There are tanks, artillery protection and all kinds of weapons used in the area,” said city mayor Vadim Boychenko. BBC.
On Sunday morning, an art school in Mariupol where 400 people took refuge was destroyed in a Russian bomb attack, according to NTB.
There have been no reports of casualties in the attack so far, but according to the Ukrainian authorities, the school is in ruins and several people have been arrested.
Russia recognizes the humanitarian catastrophe
Russia is now demanding Ukraine hand over the port city of Mariupol by 04:00 p.m. Monday, the RIA news agency reported on Sunday.
The authorities must choose to either “stand with their people” or “bandits”. If not, they will face a “military court”, according to the RIA news agency.
Earlier today, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that 59,000 people had been evacuated from Mariupol in the past three days.
There, they asked the authorities, who claimed to be Ukrainian “nationalists”, to lay down their arms, in which case they said that they would provide safe traffic outside the city on Monday – east and west.
The Ministry of Defense acknowledged a humanitarian disaster in the city, blaming the same so-called Ukrainian nationalists. Russian forces have besieged the city for more than three weeks, and it has been subjected to heavy artillery bombardment from the Russian side.
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