Up to 20,000 people may have been killed during the Russian bombardment of Mariupol, an advisor to the city’s mayor has claimed.
“Four days ago, we talked about an ‘optimistic’ scenario - about 10,000 victims. But with the increased intensity and the brutality that has increased many times over, we can say that if the blockade ends now and we can start at least searching for these people, the number of victims is already approaching 20,000,” Petro Andryushchenko told the Ukraine Pravda website.
Previously it had been claimed that some 2,500 civilians had died.
Mr Andryushchenko added that bodies lay unattended on the city’s streets. “Some are being buried, some are in the yards, on the streets. Due to the intensity of the shelling, people cannot even go outside to bury their loved ones,” he said.
Last night it was claimed that Russian soldiers had taken 400 patients and medical staff hostage in a major hospital in the city.
““We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital… and they’re using our patients and doctors like hostages,” said Mariupol mayor Sergei Orlov.
Mariupol has been encircled, besieged and bombarded by Russian forces for almost a fortnight, and become a grim symbol of Ukraine’s suffering during the 20-day war.
Residents have described conditions in the southern port city as a “living hell”, and have been left without food, power and forced to drink from radiators.
On Monday, a convoy of 160 cars was allowed to escape Mariupol on Monday, the first time a humanitarian corridor was successfully used to let civilians flee the city. Another 2,000 cars fled hellish conditions along a humanitarian corridor in the biggest evacuation yet on Tuesday.
The International Committe of the Red Cross said on Tuesday that people in Mariupol are “essentially being suffocated in this city now with no aid”.
Mariupol is where a pregnant woman was photographed being carried from a bombed maternity hospital.
The image sparked outrage and on Monday medics announced that both she and her baby had subsequently died.
Timur Marin, who treated the woman, said her pelvis had been crushed and her hip detached during the airstrike on the hospital where she was meant to give birth.
“More than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results, both died,” Mr Marin said.
Medics said she screamed “kill me now” when she realised she was losing her baby. A surgeon confirmed both the child and mother had died over the weekend.
That outrage led to people accusing Russia of war crimes. In response, Russian officials said the hospital was being used by Ukrainian extremists as a base. They also claimed the attack was “fake news”.
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov even claimed the outcry over the attack was “pathetic”.
Drone video footage released by Ukrainian forces in Mariupol showed a desolate wasteland of bombed-out buildings, many in flames, with smoke pouring into the sky.
As many as 200,000 people are thought to still be trapped in the city.
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