Fri 22 April 2022:
After new satellite images revealed a mass burial site near the Russian-occupied town of Manhush, roughly 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Mariupol, Ukraine’s Mariupol Mayor accused Russian forces of concealing evidence of their “barbaric” war crimes in the important port city.
Vadym Boichenko, the mayor, made his claim based on satellite photographs supplied by the Maxar late Thursday, which showed roughly 200 graves near an existing cemetery that had recently been extended.
According to the photographs provided by the US company, the additional graves surfaced between March 23 and March 26, according to the Washington Post.
“The biggest war crime of the 21st century was committed in Mariupol. This is the new Babyn Yar. Then, Hitler killed Jews, Roma, and Slavs. Now, Putin is destroying Ukrainians,” Boichenko said in the city council’s statement.
“We need to do everything we can to stop the genocide,” the newspaper quoted Boichenko as saying.
The Mariupol City Council in a statement on Telegram said that around 9,000 civilians are expected to be buried in the mass grave, claiming that the Russians forces “dug new trenches and filled them with corpses every day throughout April.”
The council further claimed that it has information indicating the bodies were “buried in several layers.”
The mayor claimed that more than 20,000 Mariupol residents had been killed since Russian forces began attacking the city during the early days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Most bodies had now been removed, he said, with some disposed of in mobile crematoriums.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the besieged Mariupol city has been “successfully liberated”.
Putin hailed the “liberation” after his defence minister said that Moscow controls the city apart from the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers remain.”
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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