MOSCOW: Ukrainian authorities say 3,000 to 9,000 Mariupol residents may have been buried in a mass grave in Manhush, a Russian-occupied village less than 20 kilometres from the important port city.

According to Ukrayinska Pravda, the Mariupol City Council declared in a social media post on Thursday night that the "scale of the mass grave in Manhush is 20 times that of the one in Bucha," citing satellite photographs from Maxar Technologies, which gathers and publishes satellite photography of Ukraine.

"Throughout April, the Russians built fresh trenches on the outskirts of Mariupol and filled them with bodies." According to Mariupol City Council sources, the dead are stacked one on top of the other in such graves.

As per the BBC report, Maxar Technologies stated on Thursday that their photographs showed an expansion of graves that began at the end of March, and that there were four sections of 85-meter-long straight rows. According to local estimations, the Russian army has killed 22,000 civilians in Mariupol.

"The gravest war crime of the twenty-first century has been committed in Mariupol," Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko stated in a statement. The new Babyn Yar is here. Hitler exterminated Jews, Roma, and Slavs at the time. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is currently annihilating the Ukrainian people.

"In Mariupol, he has already killed tens of thousands of civilians." This necessitates a strong response from the entire civilised world. We must do everything possible to halt the genocide." Babyn Yar is a ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, that was the location of killings committed by Nazi Germany's forces during World War II's assault against the Soviet Union.

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