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New satellite images show a mass grave in the Russian-occupied village of Manhush, about 12 miles west of Mariupol, a discovery that Ukrainian authorities say is evidence of war crimes against civilians in the strategic port city.
Images provided Thursday by The Washington Post by Maxar Technologies show several rows of graves in four separate sections, each measuring nearly 280 feet. A review of the company’s images shows that the new graves appeared between March 23 and March 26 and that there are now more than 200 grave plots next to the existing cemetery.
Mariupol City Council said in a statement to the Telegram that authorities estimated that up to 9,000 civilians could be buried in a mass grave, where authorities said Russian forces “dug new trenches and filled them with corpses every day in April.” The council added that it had information showing that the bodies had been “buried in several layers”. There was no immediate independent verification of these allegations.
Mariupol, a strategic port city, is a major focal point for Russian troops hoping to secure a land route to Russia’s annexed Crimea. Ukrainian authorities say at least 20,000 people have been killed in Mariupol since the invasion began – and that the new mass grave appears to be significantly larger than those found in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where civilians were found scattered in the streets. after the Russian troops retreated.
The discovery provoked immediate condemnation by Ukrainian authorities and once again highlighted the growing, often hidden, victims of the war. Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko called the site “the new Babin Yar”, referring to one of the largest mass graves in Europe, located on the outskirts of Kyiv, where 33,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis in 1941 during World War II. .
“The biggest war crime of the 21st century was committed in Mariupol. This is the new Babin Yar. Then Hitler killed Jews, Roma and Slavs. “Now Putin is destroying the Ukrainians,” Boychenko said in a statement from the city council. “We must do everything we can to stop the genocide.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Boychenko, wrote on his Facebook page that the photos reflected “the full scale of the Mariupol tragedy, the inhumanity of the Russians” and represented “direct evidence of war crimes and attempts to cover them up.” ”
There were no immediate comments from Russian officials in response to the discovery.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in the devastated city – even as his advisers acknowledged that thousands of Ukrainian fighters remain hidden in the steel plant there, along with hundreds of civilians. Mariupol’s last defenders have repeatedly said in recent days that they will not surrender their weapons and have vowed to fight to the end, but Ukrainian authorities have admitted they control only a small part of the city.
The mayor, Boychenko, told the Guardian on Thursday that Russian trucks had collected corpses from the streets of the port city and transported them to Manchush to hide evidence of what he called “barbaric war crimes”.
“The invaders are hiding evidence of their crimes,” he said. “The cemetery is located near a gas station on the left side of the ring road. The Russians have dug huge trenches, 30 meters wide. They throw people inside. “
The discovery of the Manchush mass grave comes as investigators in Ukraine begin diligent work to identify those killed and document potential war crimes. Mass graves were discovered in many cities after Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv; Post reporters have documented cases of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, torture and recent executions in Bordyanka, Vorzel, Moschun and Makariv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the devastation in Mariupol was likely to be on a much larger scale, as intense shelling leveled buildings and trapped civilians without basic necessities such as food and water. Efforts to evacuate the approximately 120,000 people still there have failed many times, although Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday that several dozen had managed to escape in a convoy of buses and private vehicles.
In a speech Thursday, Zelensky accused the Russians of working to cover up the atrocities while strengthening control of the city. He claims that Russian troops used a mobile crematorium to destroy bodies, making it impossible to know how many died. He did not provide further details and the allegation could not be verified independently.
According to the city council, public authorities have buried about 5,000 people in the entire battered city of Mariupol by mid-March.
“The occupiers drew conclusions from how the world reacted to the Bucha massacre,” Zelenski said. “And now the Russians are trying to hide the traces of war crimes.”
Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, accused Russian troops of dumping bodies in plastic bags on an embankment seen in new satellite images. He said the total length of the added plot was about 1,000 feet, making it many times longer than a 45-foot mass grave in Bucha, where 70 people have been found.
“Rage,” he wrote in the Telegram. Nothing but rage.
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