Tens of thousands in Mariupol in dire need of assistance

KYIV (NYTIMES) - Ukrainian officials warned on Saturday (April 23) that tens of thousands of people remaining in Mariupol are in mortal danger if desperately needed humanitarian assistance is not allowed into the city, as new satellite images emerged showing a possible mass burial site on its outskirts.

"This is the biggest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust," Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in a statement.

"At least 15,000 elderly and those with chronic diseases may die in Mariupol. There is a catastrophic shortage of drinking water, food and medicine in the besieged city."

Local officials have acknowledged that it has been impossible to get an exact toll of those injured and killed in the city, as government agencies stopped functioning weeks ago and independent observers like the Red Cross have been barred from the city by Russian forces.

But Ukrainian officials have said that more than 20,000 people may have been killed in the city since the start of the war.

An estimated 120,000 civilians remain in the city, including hundreds believed to be holed up in a sprawling steel factory with the last remaining Ukrainian fighters.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that the government was hoping to evacuate some civilians from the city on Saturday but noted that past evacuation efforts have failed because of heavy fighting and that there was no indication yet that the Russians would allow safe passage.

While it is impossible to verify much of the information released by local officials, eyewitness accounts from those who have fled Mariupol support the descriptions of a hellscape where the streets were littered with dead bodies.

Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of burying those bodies in at least two mass burial sites as part of an orchestrated effort to cover up atrocities committed in their two-month-long campaign to gain control over the southern port city.

One such site is in Manhush, a village about 14km west of Mariupol.

Satellite images released this past week by US-based space technology company Maxar Technologies and reviewed by The New York Times show 300 pits - each about 6 by 10 feet in diameter - dug over a two-week period between March and April, while Russian forces were in control of the town.

Late Friday, the Ukrainians pointed to another set of images from a different company specialising in earth observation from space, Planet Labs.

The City Council of Mariupol said the images, taken on April 29, showed another possible mass burial site outside the village of Vynohradne, which is just east of Mariupol.

Radio Free Europe reported the imagery on Friday, and Maxar released its own images of the same location.

The site is smaller than the one that was discovered in Manhush, but the images show what appear to be long trenches instead of pits. The site is close to an existing cemetery.

Digging there started between mid- and late March, according to a New York Times analysis of the images.

The village was under Russian control at the time.

The size of the apparent trenches dramatically increased in size between early April and the time the satellite images were captured.

Although the imagery showed that the apparent trenches had grown in size, it was not clear whether they had been filled with bodies or how many they could potentially hold.

"We are begging the world to save our people," said Mr Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol.

"The city must finally be evacuated. Immediately."