Mariupol residents starving, Russian forces denying water, food to refugees: Authorities

New Delhi: Thousands of Mariupol residents who somehow fled from Russian bombs are now starving to death in occupied Manhushi and Melekin as they are being refused food from the Russian forces reported The Kyiv Independent.

"Head of Donetsk Military-Civil Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said thousands of Mariupol residents who managed to escape from Russian bombs are starving to death in occupied Manhushi and Melekin. Russian occupying forces refuse to provide food, water and safe passage," tweeted The Kyiv Independent.

Currently, the city of Mariupol is under constant bombardment with satellite imagery showing significant destruction, according to a major in Ukraine`s army.

It is also not clarified if one of Ukraine`s key industrial facilities, the Azov steel plant, in Mariupol has been seized by the Russian forces

New satellite imagery shows the destruction of the city`s bombed theatre, with the word "children" clearly visible on the outside of the building, reported CNN.

Meanwhile, it is also being claimed by the Mariupol City Council that residents of Mariupol, Ukraine, are being taken to Russian territory against their will by Russian forces.

"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents have been taken to Russian territory. The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing," read a statement from the Mariupol City Council.

The captured residents are being taken to Russian camps and their documents and phones are being monitored and then were redirected to remote Russian cities.

The statement quoted Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, who said, "What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people."

"It is hard to imagine that in the 21st-century people can be forcibly taken to another country," he added.

(With agency inputs)