Bodies are piling up on the streets of Mariupol where starving Ukrainians have resorted to fighting each other for food in the desperate conditions in the besieged port city.
Residents have been sheltering for days without food, water and power in below freezing weather amid constant bombardment from Putin’s forces, which saw a maternity hospital shelled yesterday, killing three people including a six-year-old girl.
This is despite Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claiming that all women and nurses were evacuated from the hospital and it was deliberately targeted because it had been taken over by Ukrainian radicals, dismissing the Western reaction as a ‘pathetic outcry’.
The Red Cross said the situation in Mariupol is so harrowing that people are ‘attacking each other for food’ on a day in which not a single person was evacuated to safety from the under-fire city.
Supplies are so low that residents are melting snow for water and children are not being fed, with an estimated 1,207 people killed and bodies lying among the rubble.
Sasha Volkov, the delegation head of the Red Cross in the city, told the BBC there is ‘some sort of a black market with vegetables’ but other food is not available.
Medical supplies are running low and pharmacies ‘were looted four to five days ago’ amid the freezing conditions which drop to -9C at night with people huddling together for warmth in underground shelters.
People line up to get water at the well in outskirts of Mariupol with supplies running dangerously low
The desperate conditions in the besieged port city under intense bombardment for days by Putin’s forces
A man lights a fire under the kettle in a yard of an apartment building hit by shelling in Mariupol
Graphic images show mortuary workers digging trenches 25m long at one of the old cemeteries in the besieged port city of Mariupol, and making the sign of the cross as they pushed dead bodies wrapped in carpet or bags over the edge
Before/after: Two satellite images taken of the same district of Mariupol, in the south of Ukraine, show how virtually every building has been struck by artillery as Russian forces try to bomb the city into submission
Before/after: Satellite images taken over civilian areas of Mariupol show how Russian artillery strikes have reduced buildings to rubble, with others burned out from the inside
Before/after: Satellite images of Mariupol’s largest shopping center show how it has been all-but destroyed by Russian artillery, which has been bombarding the city for more than a week
Before/after: Satellite images show civilian homes being destroyed in the port city which has faced days of incessant shelling
Sergei Lavrov has made the extraordinary claim that Russia ‘did not attack Ukraine’ and dismissed the Mariupol hospital bombing as a ‘pathetic outcry’ as peace talks broke down in Turkey today
Ukraine has rejected most Russian evacuation routes because they lead to Russian soil or that of its ally, Belarus, while routes that Ukraine has proposed have come under bombardment. The only successful evacuation to take place so far has been from Sumy to Poltava (in green)
Volkov said: ‘We have started to get sick, many of us, because of the humidity and cold that we have.
‘People report varying needs in medicine. Especially for diabetes and cancer patients. But there is no way to find it any more in the city.’
Corpses are being put in body bags and dumped in mass graves after the atrocities in the city, which saw three people killed including a child in the barbaric hospital shelling.
Mortuary workers are digging 80ft long trenches at one of the old cemeteries and making the sign of the cross as they pushed dead bodies wrapped in carpet or bags over the edge.
More than 70 bodies have been interred in the common grave since it was opened Tuesday.
Supplies are so low that residents are melting snow for water and children are not being fed in the shelled city
Mortuary workers move a dead body into a plastic bag in the outskirts of Mariupol, March 9, 2022
A mortuary worker sits on body bags before they were transported to the outskirts of Mariupol, March 9, 2022
A man carries his child away from the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, March 9, 2022
The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he doesn’t know how many people have been killed but the most recent estimate is 1,207.
Serhiy Orlov said: ‘They are just bodies that we collected on the street.’
About half of those buried were killed in the intense shelling of the city, estimated an AP journalist who visited the burial ground.
Others died at home but authorities were unable to arrange for the collection of the bodies or their burial.
Mariupol has suffered at least eight major airstrikes in the past 48 hours.
Attempts to send aid and evacuation convoys have failed for six days.
Russian aircraft were targeting convoy routes on Thursday, Petro Andrushenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, told Reuters by phone.
‘We try and try and try, but I’m not sure if it’ll be possible today – or other days,’ he said.
A mortuary worker wheels a stretcher used to move dead bodies before they are buried on the outskirts of Mariupol
This image taken from video provided by the Mariupol City Council shows the aftermath of Mariupol Hospital after an attack, in the besieged port city of Mariupol, March 9, 2022
Ukrainian officials said at least 17 people were wounded in a Russian airstrike on a maternity and children’s hospital
‘Air strikes started from the early morning. Air strike after air strike. All the historic centre is under bombardment,’ he said. ‘They want to absolutely delete our city, delete our people. They want to stop any evacuation.’
Russia has repeatedly pledged since Saturday to halt firing so at least some trapped civilians could escape Mariupol. Both sides have blamed the other for the failure of the evacuations.
Again today, no one was safely evacuated after Russia failed to observe the ceasefire.
‘The only thing (I want) is for this to be finished,’ Volodymyr Bykovskyi said as he stood by a freshly dug trench where bodies were being buried.
‘I don’t know who’s guilty, who’s right, who started this. Damn them all, those people who started this!’
When the series of blasts hit the children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol, the ground shook more than a mile away.
The aftermath of the Mariupol hospital attack shows the building and nearby area completely destroyed, but Lavrov claims it had been overtaken by Ukrainian radicals
A medical worker walks inside of the hospital after it was destroyed by shelling maternity on Wednesday
Babies hide inside a bomb shelter in Mariupol which has been under constant bombardment from Russia
People queue to receive hot food in an improvised bomb shelter
The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he doesn’t know how many people have been killed but the most recent estimate is 1,207
Explosions blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building.
Pregnant women were forced to give birth in the basement in what President Zelensky described as an ‘atrocity’, a ‘war crime’ and ‘the ultimate proof of genocide against Ukrainians.’
The hospital, in the besieged city of Mariupol, was hit ‘several times’ by high-explosive Russian bombs – one of which missed the building by yards and left a crater two-stories deep, officials said. Other bombs scored ‘direct hits’, according to President Zelensky, wounding at least 17 people.
Sergei Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol, said he is ‘absolutely sure’ the Russians knew they were bombing a hospital when they launched the attack late yesterday – adding ‘this is the third hospital they have destroyed’ after a 300-bed Covid unit and blood bank were targeted on Tuesday.
Many of the pregnant women present at the hospital were hiding the the basement at the time of the strike on the orders of hospital authorities – a move indicative of the harsh bombardment suffered by Mariupol’s citizens over the past week, and one which likely saved many lives.
Putin’s attack dog Sergei Lavrov today made the extraordinary claim that Russia ‘did not attack Ukraine’ before admitting they deliberately targeted the hospital because it had been taken over by Ukrainian radicals and all the ‘mothers and nurses were chased out of there’.
Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol
A Ukrainian woman injured by flying glass holds her head in her hand as she is evacuated from a maternity hospital that was bombed by Russian forces in Mariupol
A doctor navigates the ward of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, after it was destroyed by Russian bombs
Lavrov said: ‘A few days ago, at a meeting of the UN Security Council, the Russian delegation presented the facts that this maternity hospital had long been captured by the Azov battalion and other radicals, all women in labor, all nurses, and in general, all the staff were expelled from there. It was the base of the ultra-radical Azov battalion.’
Zelensky himself posted a video showing the badly damaged hospital buildings, filmed inside a destroyed ward room with its windows blown out and ceiling partially collapsed. More footage showed a car park covered in rubble and the smoldering wrecks of vehicles as injured families staggered into the freezing air while snow fell.
‘Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity,’ the President tweeted.
He then took to Telegram, where he released a video statement from the presidential palace in Kyiv in which he said the hospital strike ‘is the ultimate proof that what is happening is the genocide of Ukrainians’.
‘Europeans, you can’t say you didn’t see what is happening. You have to tighten the sanctions until Russia can’t continue their savage war,’ he said.
Ukrainian servicemen work inside of the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine
A Ukrainian soldier examines a huge crater caused by one of the Russian rockets, which fell just in front of a hospital building at the maternity hospital in Mariupol
‘What kind of country bombs hospitals? Is afraid of hospitals? Of a maternity ward?
‘Was someone insulting Russians? Were pregnant women shooting in direction of Rostov? Was it the ”denazification” of a hospital? What the Russians did at Mariupol was beyond savagery.’
In a separate interview with Sky News, Zelensky added that Russian invaders want Ukrainians ‘to feel like animals’ by preventing them from accessing food or water, and implored NATO and the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
‘They want us to feel like animals because they blocked our cities… because they don’t want our people to get some food or water.
‘Don’t wait for me to ask you several times, a million times, to close the sky. You have to phone us, to our people who lost their children, and say ”sorry we didn’t do it yesterday.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meanwhile condemned the strike as ‘depraved’ and vowed to step up support to the beleaguered Ukrainian military.
‘There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless,’ the Prime Minister declared.
‘The UK is exploring more support for Ukraine to defend against airstrikes and we will hold Putin to account for his terrible crimes,’ he added.
Mariupol’s city council said the hospital had suffered ‘colossal’ damage but did not immediately give a figure of the wounded and dead.
The deputy head of Mr Zelensky’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said authorities are trying to establish the number of victims.
Ukrainian MP Dmitry Gurin told the BBC: ‘There are a lot of dead and wounded women. We don’t know about children or newborns yet.’
The Kremlin said on Thursday that it would ask Russian military for details about the hospital strike, saying they did not have ‘clear information’ about what happened.
‘We will certainly ask our military about this, since we don’t have clear information about what happened there. Without fail, the military will provide some kind of information,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, as Moscow’s advance into Ukraine entered its third week.
Video footage from the aftermath of the attack showed that large parts of the hospital had completely collapsed, while blood soaked mattresses were pictured lying in hallways.
‘Russia committed a huge crime,’ said Volodymir Nikulin, a top regional police official, standing in the ruins. ‘It is a war crime without any justification.’
The head of the Ukrainian Red Cross said yesterday’s strike will likely cause a complete collapse of paediatric care in Mariupol, as much of the hospital’s equipment and the paediatric care wards were reduced to ashes.