Russian military has bombed an art school where about 400 people had taken refuge amid the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
There was no immediate word on casualties at the makeshift shelter, where people had fled amid Russia’s devastating bombardment of the city.
Local authorities said on Sunday morning that the school building had been destroyed and people could remain under the rubble. Mariupol council says women, children and the elderly were sheltering in the school at the time.
Russian forces earlier this week bombed a theatre in the besieged city, where civilians and children took shelter.
The encircled city has been left without energy, food, and water supplies – all cut off by Russian forces – and faces relentless bombardment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the siege of Mariupol would go down in history for what he said were war crimes committed by Russian troops.
“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” President Zelenskyy said in a video address to the nation.
Late on Saturday, the Mariupol city council claimed Russian soldiers had forcibly relocated several thousand city residents, mostly women, and children, to Russia.
The claims have not been confirmed but Mariupol’s mayor put the figure at 3,000 to 5,000 people – who were taken to a camp before being redirected to “remote cities in Russia”.
“Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said in a video address to Western leaders.