Two "super powerful bombs" rocked the city of Mariupol on Tuesday as Ukrainian authorities made a fresh attempt to rescue civilians from the besieged port city, which has suffered relentless shelling since Russia's invasion began almost a month ago. FRANCE 24 spoke to Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov about the horrors civilians are having to face.
“Russia doesn’t want to allow Ukrainian citizens to evacuate to the Ukrainian side,” said Mariupol's Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov. "They do all their best to evacuate them to Russia, to push them, to shell their houses ... It's criminal... It's war crimes..."
The plight of Mariupol, a city of 400,000 before the war, has been the most urgent humanitarian emergency since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a month ago. Hundreds of thousands of residents are believed to be trapped inside under near constant shelling, with no access to food, water, power or heat.
Asked if the Mariupol citizens evacuated to Russia are safe, Orlov said, "I don't think they're safe because [there is] a lot of information that Russia ... took their passports, Russia gives them way to Russian cities that are not near to Ukraine, so It's different cities even in Siberia and all over Russian territory... I don't think it's safe because these people do not want to evacuate to Russia."
Click on the video player above to watch the full video.
