Satellite images show possible mass graves near Mariupol as Russia attacks in east

Repeated attempts to evacuate civilians from the the city have failed because Russia did not honor cease-fires, Ukrainian officials have said

Internally displaced people from Mariupol arrive at a refugee center fleeing from the Russian attacks, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Thursday, April 21, 2022. Picture: AP Photo/Leo Correa

Satellite photos of what appeared to be rows upon rows of freshly dug mass graves on the outskirts of Mariupol brought the horrors of the war increasingly into focus, as Russia pounded away Friday at Ukrainian holdouts in the city’s steel mill and other targets in a drive to seize the country’s industrial east.

“Every day they drop several bombs on Azovstal,” Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, said of the besieged steelworks. “Fighting, shelling, bombing do not stop.” Cities elsewhere in the Donbas region also came under Russian fire overnight, and the attacks interfered with efforts to evacuate civilians.