"Hell on earth": Survivors recount the assault on Mariupol

Russian forces are already in control of Livoberezhnyi Raion, or left-bank district, in the east of the city, as well as Mikroraiony 17-23, a string of residential neighbourhoods in the north-east, said Anna Romanenko, a Ukrainian journalist who is in close contact with Ukrainian forces there. “The front line runs right through Mariupol now,” she added…

Witnesses depicted post-apocalyptic scenes of stray dogs eating the remains of bombing victims who lay unburied on the street. Civilian casualties have been placed in mass graves or buried in the courtyards of houses: proper funerals are too dangerous.

Russia’s medieval-style siege of Mariupol also left its residents facing an acute shortage of both food and water. With no gas, they cook food on camp fires made from broken furniture in the courtyards of their houses.

Osichenko said people in his house, desperately thirsty, drained water from radiators, collected and melted snow and also scoured local parks for freshwater streams. “But queues would form there and that was a perfect target for Russian missiles,” he said. The streams also fell out of favour because they quickly became contaminated by corpses.