The mayor of Mariúpol affirms that there are three mass graves in the outskirts of the city
A satellite image from March 23 shows a graveyard on the edge of Manhush.
A third mass grave has been found near Mariupol, the mayor of the besieged southeastern city told Ukrainian television on Tuesday.
In addition to the mass graves discovered in the villages of Mangush and Vynohradne, “now we see that there is one more,” Vadym Boichenko said.
New satellite images have shown a mass grave in the town of Staryi Krym, according to the Telegram channel of the city authorities.
The images showed ditches dug on the territory of the cemetery of ancient Crimea, the city council said on Telegram.
They appeared on March 24, after the village was occupied by the Russians, and were between 60 and 70 meters long, the city council said.
By April 7, according to new footage, part of the trenches had been covered over, the council said, and the burial area had grown.
“On April 24, new ditches were registered. The length of the mass grave has increased to more than 200 meters,” he said.
Boichenko accused the Russian forces of implicating the local population in the mass burials in exchange for food.
“They [los lugareños] they told us that you have to work ‘hours’ to have food and water. Now there is not enough humanitarian aid in Mariupol, so people are forced to do it,” he said on Telegram.
CNN cannot confirm the city’s account of the mass graves. The images, from Planet Labs, were first released by Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL) on Monday.
CNN has reviewed satellite images purportedly showing mass graves at Vynohradne, but it’s unclear, beyond ground disturbance, what may have happened there.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities identified the location of the mass graves in Manhush, near Mariupol, following the release of satellite images collected and analyzed by Maxar Technologies.
Petro Andriushchenko, adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, published information on the Manhush mass grave on Telegram on Thursday.
“As a result of a long search and identification of the places of mass burial of dead Mariupol residents, we established the fact of disposal and mass burial of dead Mariupol residents in the village of Manhush,” he wrote.
Andriushchenko – who is not in Mariupol but has served as a clearinghouse for information from inside the besieged city – said Russian forces had dug several mass graves, each about 30 meters long, in Manhush, a village located about 20 kilometers west of Mariupol.
On Tuesday, Boichenko repeated that some 20,000 Mariupol residents had been killed since the beginning of the invasion.
“The situation in Mariupol remains extremely difficult,” he said. “Enemy artillery shells our Azovstal fortress”, the steel plant where Ukrainian troops and civilians take refuge.
“There are women and children inside. A ceasefire is needed to start the evacuation. Unfortunately, there is no ceasefire,” Boichenko said. “People are running out of food, there is hardly any drinking water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe.”