‘How can we live without water?’ – People of besieged Mariupol try to survive in destroyed city

Drone footage on Monday showed the extent of damage in Mariupol’s Primorskyi district on Monday, April 18 after weeks under siege.

Russia claimed on Saturday, April 16 its forces had almost completely seized the port town, but the Ukrainian defense minister on Monday disputed this claim saying the situation was “extremely” difficult but Mariupol was not under full Russian control.

Capturing Mariupol, the main port in the Donbas region, would be a strategic prize for Russia, connecting territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014.

Mariupol resident Olga said the priority at present was solving the lack of water.

“We can’t do the laundry because we don’t have water. We don’t have electricity. Now, we have to carry water from afar,” she told Reuters.

Major Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade which is still fighting in Mariupol, appealed for help in a letter to Pope Francis on Monday, saying women and children were trapped among fighters in the city’s steel works.

“This is what hell looks like on earth … It’s time (for) help not just by prayers. Save our lives from satanic hands,” the letter said, according to excerpts tweeted by Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican.

No fewer than 1,000 civilians were hiding in underground shelters beneath the vast Azovstal steel plant, the city council said on Monday.