Debris of destroyed Mariupol buildings litters the street as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 12, 2022. Photo by State Emergency Service of Ukraine/UPI |
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March 19 (UPI) -- Residents of Mariupol, Ukraine are being forcibly relocated to Russian territory against their will, according to a statement Saturday from the Mariupol City Council.
"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory. The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing," the council said in a Ukrainian statement released via Telegram and later reported by CNN.
Russian forces captured Mariupol residents and took them to camps where their phones and documents were checked, the statement continued. Some were then reportedly sent to Russian cities in remote areas. The whereabouts of others remain unknown.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko likened Russia's actions to those of Germany during World War II in comments to the news outlet Ukrinform.
"What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people. It is hard to imagine that in the 21st-century people can be forcibly taken to another country," Boichenko said.
"Russian troops are not only destroying our peaceful Mariupol, they have gone even further and started driving away Mariupol residents. All war crimes by Russia must get the most severe punishment."
Mariupol continued to bear an intense attack from Russian forces on Saturday, with invading soldiers advancing into the southeastern coastal city's port.
Russian state-owned media reported Friday that separatists in Ukraine's eastern region were "tightening the noose" around Mariupol. More than 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water, The Guardian reported.
Residents fleeing the city described dead bodies in the streets, suffering endured by those who remain trapped and widespread looting.
Corpses "were lying in the street, just covered in rags," Eduard Zarubin, a Mariupol doctor who escaped the city on Wednesday, told The New York Times. "No one cleaned up because there were no ambulances, or the ones that were still working had too much to do."