US fears possible Russian ‘concentration’ camps
The pounding of the besieged southern port city of Mariupol intensified Sunday and a top U.S. official expressed concern about the prospect of Russian-organized “concentration and prisoner camps” as Russia’s bloody assault on Ukraine waded deeper into its fourth week.
The Mariupol city council accused the Russian military of bombing an art school where about 400 people had taken shelter. There was no immediate word on casualties at the school, but the city council said on social media the building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble.
A few days earlier, Russian forces bombed a theater in Mariupol where civilians took shelter. Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been encircled by Russian troops for weeks, cut off from energy, food and water supplies and facing a relentless bombardment. The fall of Mariupol would allow Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to link up.
“Russia continues the genocide of the Ukrainian people and civilians of Mariupol,” the post said. “Every war criminal will answer for his crimes against humanity, against the people of Mariupol.”
The assault on Mariupol prompted a local police officer, in a video verified by the Associated Press, to appeal for help to President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The city council also claimed Russian soldiers have forced more than a thousand city residents to be relocated to Russia.
“The occupiers illegally took people out of the Levoberezhny district and a shelter in the building of a sports club where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from constant bombing,” the council said.
Ukrainian passports were taken from people who were given a piece of paper that “has no legal weight and is not recognized throughout the civilized world,” the city council said. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that she could not confirm those reports but expressed concern about the prospect of Russian-organized “concentration and prisoner camps.”
U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said it is “unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps.”
Latest developments
►The war has driven 10 million Ukrainians from their homes, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi tweeted. About 3.3 million have fled the country, and the rest have been “displaced inside the country,” he said.
►President Joe Biden’s planned trip to Europe does not include a stop in Ukraine, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tweeted Sunday. The trip will include a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
►Russian forces kidnapped the deputy mayor of Enerhodar, Ivan Samoydiuk, the city council reported. The southeastern city of 50,000 people is near the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant. Locals have been protesting and blocking roads since the Russian military took control of the plant.
►Researchers tracking Russian equipment losses that were photographed or recorded on video say Russia has lost more than 1,500 tanks, trucks, mounted equipment and other heavy gear. Two…
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