(Image taken on March 12, shows Primorskyi neighborhood of western Mariupol)
The Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is still under siege and faces daily bombardment. Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other for the dire humanitarian situation.
- Zelenskyy says Ukraine has lost 1,300 troops since the war started.
- Humanitarian corridors planned from six Ukrainian cities and towns.
- Russian ground forces now 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from Kyiv.
- Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron held their second call with Vladimir Putin this week.
New satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies shows the level of damage caused by military strikes in Mariupol. In Mariupol's neighborhood of Zhovteneyvi, a large, still smoldering, crater is seen near the Okko gas station. Smoke appears to be rising from an apartment complex across the street as well. The roofs of warehouses down the street appear to have large holes in them.
Within the said apartment complex, multiple buildings have sustained significant damage. A debris field can be observed surrounding some of the buildings with a large smoke plume. A field just northwest of the gas station shows the impact of craters dotting a snow-covered field. Vehicle tread marks are also seen.
Just over a mile south of there, in an industrial area in the Primorskyi neighborhood, a large fire is seen raging. With relatively clear skies over Mariupol, some of the damage that was reported earlier in the week is coming into clearer focus. These latest satellite images show extensive damage at the children's and maternity hospital that was hit by Russian military strikes on Wednesday.
(The current status of the Russian invasion of Ukraine)
"Mariupol is in a "disaster phase now".
An emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders told CNN that the humanitarian situation in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol is deteriorating by the day.
"We have staff, MSF (Medecins Sans Frontières) staff, who are currently in Mariupol who we've been able to keep contact with, although that contact is getting harder and harder to keep every day. They confirmed to us there's been no access to clean drinking water for over a week now," Alex Wade told CNN's Jim Acosta.
"They're using snow and rain water, they're breaking into heating systems to access the water in heating systems, but for many, water has already run out and so has the food for many people. The only people left with food are those who have stocks that they're rationing," he said while being in Vinnytsia, Ukraine.
Staff on the ground in Mariupol have told Wade that people are dying from lack of access to medicine:
"The next phase we will see people who potentially could die from dehydration and hunger or fleeing from the city trying to find food and water and dying from the violence outside the city."
Wade also said there's a "sense of panic" in the city right now:
"We had communication with a staff member today who was telling us that they've taking the dead bodies of their neighbors and burying them in their own yards, just so that their own neighbors will have a burial and not remain dead on the streets."
"While evacuation corridors were slated to take place for the city Saturday, the lack of available communication hampers safety efforts. When there are discussions around humanitarian corridors or safe passage out of the city, many people are uninformed and they don't know about it because there's no communication inside the city. There's no phone network. There's no internet."
A top Russian officer described the situation in the country in similarly stark language:
"Unfortunately, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is continuing to deteriorate rapidly, and in some cities, it has reached catastrophic proportions," said the head of the Russian National Defence Control Centre, Mikhail Mizintsev.
Mariupol is completely surrounded by Russian and Russian-backed separatist troops. Several sources now talk about a genocide, but so far the city is not yet taken by the Russians, and the Ukrainians continue to defend it.
Sources:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/12/russia-ukraine-war-alarm-grows-over-mariupol-liveblog
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-satellite-images-show-infrastructure-damage-in-mariupol-live-updates/a-61104419