Mariupol mayor estimates that at least 5,000 residents — including 210 children — have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine

• The besieged city of Mariupol has seen a loss of at least 5,000 residents, the mayor estimated.
• The city also accused Russian forces of burning bodies to hide evidence of war crimes.
• “This is the new Auschwitz,” said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko. 

At least 5,000 people — including 210 children — in the city of Mariupol have died since Putin launched an unprovoked war against Ukraine in late February, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko estimated Wednesday.

The city council has also accused Russian forces of burning bodies using mobile crematoriums to hide evidence of war crimes.

Russian forces have inundated the city with bombardments. Among other things, attacks hit both a maternity hospital and a theater that clearly had “CHILDREN” written in Russian on the outside.

Boichenko called this a “deliberate destruction of the civilian population of Mariupol” in a Telegram post.

“The world has not seen the scale of the tragedy in Mariupol since the existence of the Nazi concentration camps. Russia-occupation forces turned our entire city into a death camp,” Boichenko said, according to a city council Telegram post. “This is the new Auschwitz and Majdanek.”

The mayor estimates that approximately 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been demolished in the war.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has ceased its efforts to get residents out of Mariupol saying the situation was “impossible,” but the committee said it assisted approximately 1,000 residents seeking to escape on their own.

“The world should help punish Putin’s villains,” Boichenko said in his Telegram post.

Translations by Nikita Angarski.