Priests escort food convoy into Mariupol in mission to evacuate civilians on way back

A HUMANITARIAN convoy was yesterday being escorted into the besieged city of Mariupol by Orthodox priests to shield it from Russian bombs, according to local officials.

Orthodox clergy members reportedly volunteered to accompany the convoy loaded with 90 tonnes of food and medicine from nearby Zaporizhzhia and were hoping to evacuate civilians on the way back.

There have been several previous attempts to do so over the past week but Russian shelling made them impossible.

It is hoped that the Russian army will be less willing to fire on the priests because Russian Orthodoxy is the country’s largest denomination. Earlier this week, a Russian soldier stopped a Ukrainian priest from approaching the booby-trapped body of a mayor who had been killed by invading troops.

Yesterday Russian forces reportedly bombed a mosque in Mariupol where more than 80 people had sought shelter, as the besieged city endured its worst day of fighting. Russian forces have encircled the south-eastern city, blocking major routes out, destroying bridges and mining some roads. Ukrainian authorities said Russian troops had captured Mariupol’s eastern outskirts.

Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the port city, including 3,000 babies and 50,000 children, according to officials. It is believed more than 1,500 people have been killed in the fighting.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey said that a group of 86 Turkish nationals, including 34 children, were among those holed up in the mosque before it was hit. It remained unclear if there were any casualties.

In a video message broadcast to European cities yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russians were “bombing [the city] 24 hours a day”.

The humanitarian crisis has intensified with those trapped enduring subzero temperatures with no electricity, gas or water supplies.

Doctors Without Borders said people were also dying from lack of medicines. They added that some had resorted to gathering water from the ground or draining it from heating pipes.

Repeated attempts to bring in food and evacuate civilians have been cancelled due to Russian shelling. There were also reports of a group of hospital workers coming under sniper fire on Friday. One worker who was shot in the hip survived.

The hospital, where many have gone in the hope it proves a safe haven, was rationing electricity for operating tables.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Besieged Mariupol is now the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet: 1,582 dead civilians in 12 days.”

Aid workers resorted to scavenging for food to feed those sheltering in the office basement of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s base in the city.

A member of staff said: “We brought all the food that we have in our homes. We will have food for a few days. We still have some storage of potable water. When we run out of the stock, we will boil water from the stream.”

The news that Russian forces had captured part of the city means the invaders have tightened their grip. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized in 2014.

An air strike on a maternity hospital which killed three people last week triggered international outrage.

Russia had insisted pictures of Mariana Vishergirskaya, an injured pregnant woman, fleeing the damaged children’s hospital were “fake”. The Russian Embassy in London issued a tweet claiming the woman had been a “crisis actor” wearing “some very realistic make-up”.

However, it later emerged that she gave birth to a baby girl after being photographed with her husband, Yuri, and daughter, Veronika, in hospital.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Zelensky said of the attacks on Mariupol: “It is hatred. They kill children. They destroy maternity hospitals. They destroy hospitals, why? So Ukraine has no more children.”

‘They kill children. They destroy maternity hospitals. Why? So Ukraine has no more children’