Washed out graves, "swamps" on the streets, chemical leaks - Mariupol is now threatened with epidemics and new hardship
Created: 05/20/2022, 12:52 p.m
By: Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld
Destroyed infrastructure, mass graves and rising temperatures: fear of epidemics is rampant in the port city of Mariupol, which is occupied by Russia.
Mariupol/Munich - The names of these places will probably go down in the annals of history - and are symbolic of the horrors of the Russian invasion war against Ukraine: Bucha and Mariupol.
Since February 24, 2022, Mariupol has been under constant shelling.
Its strategically attractive location for Russia made the once lively university town on the shore of the Sea of Azov in Donetsk Oblast one of the main targets of the Russian military.
What followed was the almost complete destruction of the homeland of what had once been 440,000 people and a final gasp from the fighters who remained at the Azov Steelworks.
It was over after 82 days: Since then, Mariupol has been completely in Russian hands.
It is the end of the most brutal battle of the Ukraine war so far.
The remaining people, estimated at around 100,000 according to dpa, are left with nothing.
Destroyed infrastructure, destroyed water supply - and the danger of rapidly spreading diseases.
Where there is great need, where the dead can only be given a makeshift burial and hygiene is a pre-war “luxury”, the likelihood of epidemics is high.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has already warned of a cholera outbreak in occupied areas of Ukraine.
This was reported by
Euractiv
, among others .
Ukraine-Russia war: Mariupol now threatened with epidemics and "natural disaster of global proportions"
According to the Brussels portal, Dorit Nitzan, head of the WHO operation in Ukraine, said that she had received reports from her local partners who would report "real swamps on the streets".
“Sewage and drinking water mix.
This is a major threat to many infectious diseases, including cholera," she said.
A man cooks next to his home in Mariupol, an area under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine.
© Alexei Alexandrov/dpa
The mayor of Mariupol reports something similar.
"The occupiers buried our killed citizens in a completely chaotic manner, the sewage washes out these graves, unfortunately this is an epidemiological problem," quotes the
New York Times
, among others, from a video message by Vadym Boychenko.
There is no electricity, hardly any food and water, no medical structures, the politician continued to report on the conditions prevailing in Mariupol.
The sewage system no longer works either.
An even more urgent warning comes from the Mariupol City Council.
According to
The Kyiv Independent
, the continued shelling at the Azov Steel Plant may have severely damaged facilities storing hazardous chemicals, the panel said.
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Rising temperatures, rainfall and the ongoing devastating circumstances in which the people of Mariupol endure: A potentially ticking biological time bomb.
For the time being, this should only remain a side issue for the residents.
In mid-May, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said according to dpa: "The city of Mariupol (...) has experienced unimaginable horror since the beginning of the Russian attack".
Your office assumes thousands of deaths in the city, which was largely destroyed in the course of the escalating Ukraine conflict.
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