The United Nations has received a wealth of information corroborating the existence of mass graves in the besieged city of Mariupol, as well as “satellite information” regarding one of these sites, said Matilda Bogner, head of human rights monitoring for the UN Mission in Ukraine.
“We estimate that one of these mass graves contains about 200 people,” she told a news conference on Friday.
Russian and Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the UN allegation.
At the press conference, Bogner made one caveat: it is not guaranteed that all buried people “are civilian victims, because when we document civilian casualties, we do not include military casualties and people who die for reasons other than direct hostilities,” he said.
Bogner made this point while painting an alarming picture of a city where “the normal death rate has increased” due to a lack of basic services such as food, electricity and water. “The people dying in the city are not just civilian victims,” she emphasized.
Russia has continued to deny that it targets civilian facilities, but the city of Mariupol has already seen bombings in places such as a maternity hospital, a school and a theater where refugees sheltered, and has been under attack since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
Negotiations to open humanitarian corridors, for example, excluded the region this week due to a lack of consensus on evacuating the area.
*With information from Giovanna Galvani, from CNN
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
