Deputy mayor of #Mariupol Sergiy Orlov has just been speaking. Says city under "continuous Russian shelling", genocide taking place, 1170 people killed, 47 buried today in a mass grave. No water, heat, power, gas, with residents drinking snow and burning firewood. "It's medieval"
Orlov: "Putin is intent on having Ukraine without Ukrainians. It's pure genocide. The attack being waged by Russia isn't simply treacherous. It's a war crime. They are attacking us with aviation, shells, multiple rocket launchers."
Orlov says #Russian army has shelled evacuation corridor, mined the road and put in a check point. 200K people desperate to leave, only 2-3K able to get out daily on 21 municipal buses. The others destroyed. Russians deliberately shelling assembly points for those trying to exit
#Russian soldiers also fire on private cars trying to escape the siege, Orlov says. Not at them but alongside so they are forced to return to #Mariupol. "They are shooting and bombing the humanitarian corridor. That's the situation," he says, calling for an immediate no-fly zone
Orlov says Russian army has destroyed #Mariupol's maternity hospital number nine, a 600-bed hospital. "It's been annihilated," he says. Moscow has also flattened the Azovstal metallurgical factory, which employed 11k people, as well as main admin building azovstal.metinvestholding.com/en
My @guardian piece on Putin's genocide coming soon. Meantime, here's a film I made in #Mariupol just last month - back then a flourishing European port city, already on the frontline, and home to Ukraine's small naval fleet theguardian.com/world/video/20…
@guardian And here's my piece on today's Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in #Mariupol. "A warm crime. Pure genocide. #Putin wants to have a #Ukraine without Ukrainians in it," the city's deputy mayor says. "They are dropping half tonne bombs from the sky" theguardian.com/world/2022/mar…
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