The Mariupol city council warned on Friday that the Russian army was carrying out a “new level of cleansing” in the besieged Ukrainian city, not allowing residents to bury dead civilians.
In a Telegram post citing locals still trapped there, officials also said that “Russian troops have begun the process of exhuming bodies previously buried in the courtyards of apartment buildings.”
“A new level of ‘cleansing’ of the conquerors,” the post said. “The occupiers forbid the burial of people who were killed by them. They put their own supervisor in every yard.”
A building damaged during the fighting was seen in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Wednesday. (AP / Alexei Alexandrov)
RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES
“It is unknown why the exhumation will take place and where the bodies will be sent,” the city council added.
The council went on to say that “since the Ukrainian intelligence service has registered 13 mobile crematoria in Mariupol, it is possible to assume that the Russian occupying forces are trying in every way to replace the traces of their war crimes in our city.”
An armed soldier of the Donetsk People’s Republic militia passes in front of a building that was destroyed during the fighting in Mariupol on Wednesday. (AP / Alexei Alexandrov)
“But they will not succeed, the whole world is already recording numerous crimes of the Russian army in Mariupol”, the post concludes. “Every criminal will be punished!”
CLICK HERE TO RECEIVE THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
Emergency workers remove debris from a building destroyed during the Ukraine-Russia clash in Mariupol on Sunday. (REUTERS / Alexander Ermochenko)
The Mariupol city council said earlier this month that “Russia’s top leadership has ordered the destruction of any evidence of crimes committed by its army in Mariupol.”
The allegations could not be immediately verified independently.
Fox News’ Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
