The head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said today that monitors have received more information about mass graves in the besieged port city of Mariupol, including one in which 200 bodies were apparently found, Reuters reported.
“We are getting more and more information about mass graves there,” Matilda Bogner told reporters via video link from Ukraine, adding that some of the evidence comes from satellite imagery.
The UN Human Rights Office, which has about 50 staff in Ukraine, has to date counted 1,035 civilian casualties since Russia’s February 24 invasion.
A Reuters journalist who made his way into the Russian-held part of Mariupol on Sunday saw several bodies lying on the side of the road and a group of men digging graves in the grass beside the road.
Bogner’s team is investigating alleged human rights violations, such as reports that the Russian military shot and killed civilians in their vehicles while fleeing; dozens of cases of Ukrainian officials and journalists disappearing and civilians being forcibly evicted from Russian-controlled territory.
Russia, which has been calling its actions a “special operation” since February 24, has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine.
Also today, Advisor to the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovich said that Ukrainian troops repelled the first attack of Russian troops on the city of Slavutych, where workers from the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant live. Earlier in the day, local authorities said the town was cordoned off and Russian troops were very close to Slavutik.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, Russian forces managed to some extent create a land corridor between Crimea and the Donetsk region.