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The Mariupol city council warned Friday that the Russian military is carrying out a “new level of cleansing” in the beleaguered Ukrainian city by not allowing residents to bury dead civilians.
In a Telegram post citing residents still trapped there, officials also said “Russian troops have begun the process of exhuming bodies that were previously buried in the yards of residential buildings.”
“A new level of occupant ‘cleansing’,” the post said. “The occupiers prohibit the burial of those killed by them. In each yard they have put their own overseer.”
A building damaged in the fighting is seen in Mariupol, Ukraine on Wednesday. (AP/Alexei Alexandrov)
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“It is not known why the exhumation will take place and where the bodies will be sent,” the city council added.
The council went on to say “given that the Ukrainian intelligence services have registered 13 mobile crematoria in Mariupol, it is possible to assume that the Russian occupation forces are trying by all means to replace the traces of their war crimes in our city.
An armed serviceman from the Donetsk People’s Republic militia walks past a building damaged during fighting in Mariupol on Wednesday.
(AP/Alexei Alexandrov)
“But they will not succeed, the whole world is already recording many crimes of the Russian army in Mariupol,” the message concluded. “Every criminal will be punished!”
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On Sunday, rescue workers remove debris from a building destroyed during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Mariupol.
(REUTERS/Alexander Ermoshenko)
The Mariupol city council said earlier this month that “Russia’s top leadership has ordered the destruction of all evidence of crimes committed by its army in Mariupol.”
The claims could not immediately be independently verified.
Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
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