Nearly 5,000 dead in Mariupol so far during Russia-Ukraine war: mayor’s office
Global News
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Monday that 160,000 civilians were still trapped in the city without heat and power after weeks of Russian bombardment.
Almost 5,000 people, including roughly 210 children, have died in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol since Russia invaded last month, according to the mayor’s spokesperson.
On Monday, the spokesperson quoted data from the mayor’s office that said about 90 per cent of buildings in the port city had been damaged, and about 40 per cent had been destroyed. It was not immediately clear how the death toll was calculated.
Earlier Monday, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said 160,000 civilians are still trapped in Mariupol without heat and power after weeks of Russian bombardment.
“The situation in the city remains difficult. People are beyond the line of humanitarian catastrophe,” Boichenko said on national television. “We need to completely evacuate Mariupol.”
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, has denied targeting civilians in the conflict, and has blamed Ukraine for the repeated failure to execute safe corridors for trapped civilians in Mariupol.
Mariupol made international headlines on March 16 when a drama theatre sheltering hundreds of residents in its basement was bombed. Satellite photos taken before the attack showed an enormous inscription reading “children” in Russian posted outside the building.
Local officials, citing witness accounts, said last Friday that as many as 300 people may have been killed in the strike.
The city council made clear it was still not possible to determine the exact death toll, and the Ukrainian government has said it’s almost impossible to tell how many have been killed because Mariupol is under almost constant bombardment.