People leaving Mariupol to be taken to temporary residences in Nizhny Novgorod
(Picture: AP)The civilian death toll in the battered Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has passed 5,000 and includes 210 children, its mayor said on Thursday as new claims emerged of other war crimes by Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Vadym Boichenko said the toll also included fatalities from the bombing of hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death, and that more 90 per cent of his city’s infrastructure had been destroyed by Russian bombardments.
The bleak update came as Ukrainian officials reported another 118 airstrikes on the city over the latest 24-hour period.
They also claimed that Russian forces have been collecting bodies to destroy evidence of war crimes and using a mobile crematorium to dispose of corpses of civilians killed by their shelling and shooting.
The city has been a key target since the conflict started because of its coastal position and the fact that its fall will enable Putin’s troops in the Crimea to connect via land to their counterparts in eastern Ukraine.
It has held out despite weeks without water, food and energy, amid a relentless artillery and air raid offensive. Several high-profile atrocities have been committed by the Russians during the onslaught, including shelling a maternity hospital and bombing a theatre in which hundreds of civilians were sheltering.
About 1,000 people made it out of the city on Wednesday in a convoy of buses and private cars organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross. A photo also emerged of 500 Ukrainians arriving in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on a train from the Donbas region.
