The humanitarian situation in major Ukrainian cities is deteriorating and is still on fire due to Russian strikes.
In Mariupol, a strategic city in southeastern Ukraine – plagued by weeks of bombings and water, gas and electricity shortages – the family reported the deaths of hungry, thirsty and bitten people lying on the streets for days. The cold of nights spent in cellars with sub-zero temperatures.
The group of 19 children, most of whom are orphans, are “in great danger” and are trapped in a sanatorium, where their bodyguards were unable to rescue them due to the fighting, their relatives and witnesses told AFP on Saturday.
In the north of the country, Chernihiv mayor Vladislav Atroshenko described his city as a “complete humanitarian catastrophe.”
“Indiscriminate artillery fire continues in residential areas, killing dozens of civilians, children and women,” he told television. “There is no electricity, no heat and no water. The city’s infrastructure is completely destroyed.” At the blast hospital, “operated patients lie in corridors at a temperature of 10 degrees,” he said.
According to official Ukrainian figures, the strikes have not stopped in the capital, Kyiv, Mykoliv, and Kharkiv, a large Russian-speaking city in the northwest.