Tens of thousands in Mariupol in dire need of assistance: Officials

KYIV • Ukrainian officials warned that tens of thousands of people remaining in Mariupol would be in mortal danger if desperately needed humanitarian assistance is not allowed into the city.

"This is the biggest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust," Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in a statement on Saturday. "At least 15,000 elderly folk 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 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 100,000 civilians remain in the city, including hundreds believed to be holed up in a sprawling steel factory with the last remaining Ukrainian fighters.

The United Nations' Ukraine crisis coordinator, Mr Amin Awad, yesterday called for an "immediate stop" to fighting in Mariupol to allow the evacuation of trapped civilians in the battered city.

"The lives of tens of thousands, including women, children and older people, are at stake in Mariupol," he said in a statement. "We need a pause in fighting right now to save lives. The longer we wait, the more lives will be at risk. They must be allowed to safely evacuate now, today. Tomorrow could be too late."

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the government had been hoping to evacuate civilians from the city on Saturday but the attempt failed, with Kyiv saying it was "thwarted" by Russian forces.

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. The City Council of Mariupol said images showed another possible mass burial site outside the village of Vynohradne, just east of Mariupol. 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 Mariupol Mayor Boychenko. "The city must finally be evacuated. Immediately."

NYTIMES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE