Russia invades Ukraine: Mariupol mayor says more than 10K civilians killed

LVIV, Ukraine — UPDATE: Mayor Vadym Boichenko told The Associated Press Monday that the civilian death toll has risen to over 10,000 since the Russians invaded the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Boichenko told The Associated Press that the death toll could rise significantly, noting that corpses were “carpeted through the streets of our city.”

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The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol said more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in the city since the Russians invaded, including 210 children.

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Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Wednesday that Russian forces have bombed hospitals, including one facility where 50 people burned to death, according to The Associated Press.

The mayor added that more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed by shelling from Russian missiles, according to the AP.

Boichenko, who has left the city, said on national television on Monday that about 160,000 civilians were still trapped in the port city, Reuters reported.

Approximately 140,000 people fled the city on the Sea of Azov before the Russian siege began, according to Boichenko’s figures. Reuters and the AP have not been able to immediately verify the mayor’s figures or how he arrived at them.

Mariupol is a strategic city on the Sea of Azov. Capturing it would allow Russia to secure a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, according to the AP.

“The Russian Federation is playing with us. We are in the hands of the invaders,” Boichenko said, according to Reuters. “People are beyond the line of humanitarian catastrophe. We need to completely evacuate Mariupol.”

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Photos: Scenes from Mariupol amid Russian invasion of Ukraine A woman pulls her bags past houses damaged during fighting in Mariupol, the territory which is now under the control of the Donetsk People's Republic, in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

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