Mariupol Residents Are Working For Russian Soldiers In Exchange For Water

The remaining residents of a city in Ukraine that was completely taken over by Russian forces nearly two weeks ago are working for their occupiers in exchange for water, Ukrainian officials said.

More than 100,000 people remained in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. But the situation inside the city has been "very difficult," Vadym Boichenko, the city's mayor, was cited as saying Wednesday by Pravda.

"[Russian forces] show in their propaganda videos how they tried to give out food in April, this is not happening today. Since April, Mariupol residents have not had access to food," the official said.

Both the Russian occupiers and the forces of the pro-Russian For Life party, also known as the OPZZh, have allegedly declared themselves to be in power and are holding Mariupol residents hostage.

"[T]he occupying forces are simply not distributing the drinking water that has been delivered, but want the residents of Mariupol to go and clear the rubble, collect [bodies] and help them bury the dead and hide these war crimes... Mariupol residents are working for water today," Boichenko said.

Around 70 to 200 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of buildings Russian forces had "reduced to ashes," noted the Ukrainian mayor.

Burials in the city are increasing and rising temperatures and downpours may lead to outbreaks of infectious diseases such as dysentery and cholera that could kill thousands of residents, Boichenko added.

The official is now calling for the opening of "green corridors" for Ukrainians.

"[W]e need to unite around this problem, unite international partners, the UN, the Red Cross, and create sustainable 'green corridors' so that our Ukrainian people can go to the territory controlled by our country," he said.

Russia took full control of Mariupol on May 20 when the last Ukrainian defenders emerged from the bunkers of the Azovstal steelworks, a plant that held back the Russians for weeks.

At least 22,000 civilians died in the city throughout Russia's nearly three-month-long siege.

Until recently, rubble in Mariupol had reportedly been cleared by the Ministry of Emergencies of the Donetsk People's Republic, an internationally-unrecognized separatist state in Ukraine.

The city's population got excluded from the process, so they would not be able to pass on information to Mariupol's authorities, Boichenko said.