Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/Shutterstock
More than 70 bodies, wrapped in carpets or bags, have been put into a trench 80 feet long since Tuesday, according to the AP, noting gloved workers quickly making the sign of the cross before pushing the dead into the giant hole in the ground.
The rest died of other causes in the coastal city of almost 450,000, which has been without power, heat and water in sub-freezing temperatures.
Residents are reportedly collecting and boiling snow to drink.
A 6-year-old girl named Tanya, who died of dehydration Tuesday after her mother was killed, is among them,The New York Timesreports. Ukraine’s PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyysaid it was the “first time in decades, apparently, since the Nazi invasion” that a child died of dehydration in Mariupol.
Russian forces alsostruck a children’s hospital and maternity wardthere on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. (Russia has denied targeting civilian sites.)
It’s one of eight major airstrikes in Mariupol in the last 48 hours, according to the AP.
An estimated 1,300 civilians have been killed there since the Russian invasion began, the deputy mayor Serhiy Orlovtold the BBC. He added that the mass grave was necessary because of the high numbers of dead but also because attacks are ongoing and it’s too dangerous for residents to bury loved ones in private graves.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/Shutterstock
Marina Levinchuk, who was able to flee Mariupol days ago, said she received a message from city officials before she left advising residents what to do with a body if a family member has died.
“Just put the body outside, cover it, tie up the hands and the legs and leave it outside,” she told theTimesof the instructions.
Repeated efforts to establish a cease-fire that would allow Mariupol residents to evacuate through a “humanitarian corridor” have been unsuccessful.
Dmytro Gurin, a member of Ukraine’s parliament from Mariupol, told the BBC he fears people there will starve.
“The next thing will be the hunger,” he said. “In a week you will have famine in the center of Europe.”
“This is not war any more. This is not army against army,” Gurin said. “It is Russia against humanity.”
Ukrainian soldiers take positions under a bridge during crossing fire inside the city of Kyiv, Ukraine.Emilio Morenatti/AP/Shutterstock
Russia’sattack on Ukrainecontinues after their forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. President Zelenskyy called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
“Nobody is going to break us, we’re strong, we’re Ukrainians,“he told the European Unionin a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, “Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness.”
source: people.com
