The mayor of Ukraine’s Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, stated sanitary services were destroyed and bodies were decaying in the streets as a result of a Russian siege.
“There is a dysentery and cholera outbreak,” Boichenko said on national television. “The battle that took over 20,000 citizens… sadly, with these virus outbreaks, thousands more Mariupolites will be claimed,” he added, adding that some wells have been tainted by corpses.
Boichenko has asked the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to build a humanitarian corridor to allow the city’s surviving population to flee.
In a picture of the war’s broader impact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned that reduced exports of wheat and other food commodities from Ukraine and Russia might cause chronic hunger for up to 19 million extra people worldwide over the next year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine begged with Western countries for speedier weapon delivery as better-armed Russian soldiers pummeled the country’s east, as well as humanitarian assistance to tackle mounting outbreaks of fatal illnesses.
Further intense combat was reported in Sievierodonetsk, the little city that has become the focal point of Russia’s assault in eastern Ukraine and one of the worst flashpoints in a war that is now in its fourth month.
Meanwhile, with no end in sight to the fighting, Russian officials began issuing passports to inhabitants of the seized city of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Saturday, according to Reuters, citing state-owned local media. At a special celebration, twenty-three Kherson locals allegedly acquired their Russian passports. The news comes as Russia strives to strengthen its grip on beleaguered Kherson in a battle that has raged since February. Kherson was one of the first cities it conquered during its early days.