The mayor of Mariupol said that more than 600 people were injured in Russian bombing that struck the makeshift hospital facility within the besieged Azovstal steel complex.
“You already know that they dropped bombs on the hospital, aerial bombs destroyed the hospital, and that is a sign of a war crime, because the number of wounded before that was 170, and now it is over 600,” the mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said on Ukrainian television.
The Azovstal plant was heavily bombed on Wednesday night, according to multiple accounts.
Boichenko also claimed that the Russians had set up four “filtration” centers in the city where those who want to be evacuated are screened.
“If someone leaves the city and he is, in one way or another, connected with the civil service, with the municipal service, they get the sad news that they go to prison. Such people are being held and tortured there,” he claimed.
CNN cannot verify the mayor’s allegations.
He said some families who wanted to leave for Ukrainian territory were being forced to go to Russian-controlled areas.