As Vladimir Putin's troops intensify attacks on civilians, the destruction in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, under Russian siege for 16 days, is “colossal” and it is estimated that 80 per cent of homes have been destroyed, while 30,000 people have been able to leave the city in the last two days with their own transport, reported this Thursday the local council.
“According to preliminary estimates, about 80% of the city's housing stock has been destroyed, of which almost 30% cannot be restored. The situation in Mariupol is critical,” the council wrote on its Telegram channel.
He recalled that the city had been under blockade for 16 days and that more than 350,000 residents of Mariupol were still hiding in warehouses and basements “in the face of the continuous bombardment of the Russian occupation forces”, which dropped, on average, “50 to 100 aerial bombs a day”.
In the past two days, the inhabitants of Mariupol began to evacuate the city by private transport, in the direction of Berdyansk and Zaporiyia, following the opening of a humanitarian corridor.
“In total, about 6,500 cars left the besieged Mariupol... In total, about 30,000 people went out on their own transport,” he said.
On the other hand, the City Council notes that there is still no information on possible victims of the Russian bombing perpetrated on Wednesday against a theater in the city, where more than a thousand women and children were refugees and that was reduced to rubble, but where the bomb shelter in the building resisted the attack.
The city has hardly any water, medicine or basic food, and it lacks gas and electricity due to heavy bombing.
For his part, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric reported at his daily press conference that at least 928,000 Ukrainians are without power because of the war unleashed after the Russian invasion.
The figure was communicated by the same Ministry of Energy of Ukraine to humanitarian agencies that continue to work in the country, Dujarric said.
In addition, 259,000 people have lost their connection to natural gas.
The situation is especially critical in the cities of Chernihiv, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Zaporiyia and Kabatsa, the spokesman specified.
In addition, he cited a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) which denounced that 43 medical facilities had been attacked during the war, something he categorically condemned, recalling that under international law “medical facilities and their workers and carriers must be respected” by the warring sides.
On Thursday, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, said that “the situation in Mariupol should not become the future of Ukraine”, where he is to assess the most urgent humanitarian needs in urban centers that have become the battlefields of the war that began with the invasion of Russia.
In the coastal city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, civilian suffering has been particularly intense due to constant shelling and siege by Russian forces, which do not allow safe entry of food, drinking water or medicine for the hundreds of thousands of people there.
Maurer said that the devastation he has witnessed on his way to Kiev is widespread and reminded the parties to this conflict that “even without a cessation of hostilities things can be done to limit the suffering of civilians.”
Despite international condemnation, Putin intensifies his attacks on civilians in Ukraine. In the last few hours, more than 75 deaths were reported. The biggest bloodbath in the last few hours occurred in Chernihiv. There, authorities reported that 53 bodies arrived at the morgue due to the bombing in the north of the country.
Chernihiv, near the borders with Belarus and Russia, was one of the first Ukrainian cities to be attacked by Russian forces at the start of the invasion three weeks ago.
“The enemy is exposing the city to systemic artillery and air strikes, destroying Chernihiv's civilian infrastructure,” Viacheslav Chaus, head of the region's State Administration, reported in a Facebook message.
Meanwhile, at least 21 people were killed and 25 injured on Thursday in a Russian bombing on the eastern Ukrainian city of Merefa, the regional prosecutor's office reported.
Artillery shots hit a school and a cultural center on Thursday morning in that town, outside Kharkiv, the Prosecutor's Office announced on Facebook. Ten of the wounded are serious.
With information from EFE
Keep reading: