(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 11 - The Russian forces occupying the Ukrainian city of Mariupol demolished 1,300 residential buildings without removing the hundreds of corpses left in the rubble, according to Mayor Vadym Boychenko.
The mayor - who fled from Mariupol to the territory controlled by Ukraine - says that at first "the occupants involved the residents of Mariupol in carefully dismantling the rubble" but when they saw the actual number of bodies that were found they immediately removed local residents.
"The real number of corpses under the rubble of the destroyed houses is frightening - writes Boychenko on the Telegram channel of the Mariupol City Council -. Between 50 and 100 people were killed in almost all the destroyed buildings and 1,300 buildings were demolished" in the city.
The mayor adds that since the demolition of the buildings was carried out indiscriminately,
the bodies of Mariupol residents killed in the fighting were taken to landfill along with the massacres.
Mariupol Municipality estimates that at least 22,000 residents of the southeastern Ukrainian city were killed during the first three months of the war.
"Unfortunately, the real number of people killed could be much higher than reported," according to Boychenko.
(HANDLE).