Mariupol City Council: Russia Today accidentally reveals 9,000 Mariupolites buried in mass graves
Denys Karlovskyi — Monday, 25 April 2022, 15:47
Mariupol City Council is convinced that Russia Today has accidentally revealed the mass burial site of thousands of Mariupol residents near Manhush.
Source: Mariupol City Council
Quote: "In view of the information from eye-witnesses about the nature and scope of the burials carried out throughout April, we confirm our previous assessment that between 3,000 and 9,000 people from Mariupol have been buried in Manhush."
Details: A Russia Today crew filmed a "report" near the site where civilians were buried to show that "there was no mass grave there".
The RT reporter said that the wooden markers installed on the graves supposedly have the deceased people’s first and last names written on them, or their gender and age if the body had not been identified.
The footage, however, reveals that most of the markers say "35-45 l.", "72-75 l." or "50-60 l." and "n/m" or "n/z". These are likely to be abbreviations indicating people’s ages ("35-45 years old" etc.) and "unknown man/woman" in Russian. Hundreds of such markers can be seen in the video.
It is impossible to confirm whether the RT report was shot in Manhush and when the grave markers were set up.
Staff from Mariupol City Council are however convinced that the footage shows mass graves rather than individual burial sites. They were reportedly able to estimate the number of people buried in the mass graves shown by RT as at least 268.
The video shows only one sector of the burial site. However, satellite images from the Manhush cemetery dated 9 April show that there are four such sectors.
Background:
- At the end of March, Maxar Technologies satellites recorded the appearance of 300-metre-long trenches in a field near Manhush, to which the Russian occupying forces allegedly brought the bodies of Mariupol residents killed in the invasion.
- Mariupol City Council estimates that such trenches may contain up to 9,000 bodies.
- A similar mass grave was spotted by satellites in the village of Vynohradne near Mariupol.
