The mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, Vadym Boichenko, said the Russian military was creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the city.
In a post on his Telegram account on Thursday (3), the mayor declared: “They are blocking the supply and repair of electricity, water and heating. They also damaged the railways.”
“They destroyed bridges and crushed trains so that we cannot evacuate women, children and the elderly from Mariupol,” he added.
Russia is cutting off food supplies, “blocking us like in old Leningrad [na Segunda Guerra Mundial]deliberately destroying the city’s critical life-supporting infrastructure in the last seven days,” said the mayor, who added that the city had no light, water or heat.
“We are working with international institutions to create a ‘green corridor’ for humanitarian mission. We are working to secure a ceasefire to restore electricity,” Boichenko said.
“We are being destroyed as a nation. This is the genocide of the Ukrainian people. These hypocrites came to ‘save’ the Russian citizens of Mariupol and the region,” the mayor continued. “But they organized the extermination of the Ukrainians – Mariupol residents of Russian, Ukrainian, Greek and other origins.”
“We don’t know how many civilians died”
In an exclusive interview with CNN this Thursday (3), the deputy mayor of Mariupol said that the city is “surrounded” by Russian forces.
“Our Ukrainian army and National Guard are very brave, they fight for Ukraine, for Mariupol. But the situation is quite critical,” Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told anchor John Berman of CNNasking the West to provide more military support.
“We are asking for help, for military help, and we are waiting for military help,” Orlov said. “Our internal forces are very brave, but we are surrounded by the Russian army, which has more people in its army.”
Speaking during an interview on the New Day of CNNOrlov said Mariupol faced 26 hours of continuous bombing, warning that the city was now facing a humanitarian crisis.
“They are destroying our city with every weapon, from artillery, from plane bombing, from tactical rockets, from multiple rocket launch systems,” Orlov said.
We don’t have electricity throughout the city, we don’t have water supply, we don’t have sanitary systems, we don’t have heating,” he added.
The deputy mayor also said Russian bombing had hit several civilian buildings, including homes, kindergartens and schools, but added that the number of civilians killed in the city was still unclear.
“We don’t know how many [civis morreram]because we can’t collect all the bodies and we can’t count,” Orlov said.
In a video on Thursday, Russian General Igor Konashenkov said the Russian military had made advances around Mariupol, repeating claims that it was not attacking civilian areas in Ukraine.
Russia routinely denies causing civilian casualties in Ukraine, however, international media and observers have extensively documented civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.
Source: CNN Brasil

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