Mass Burial Site Near Mariupol Doubles In Size; 15,000 Ukrainians Likely Buried There

A mass burial site located in Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine may contain the bodies of more than 15,000 people, Ukrainian authorities claimed.

The cemetery, which can be found in Staryi Krym, a town near the Russian-controlled city of Mariupol, has doubled in size between May 8 and June 29, satellite images published by the United States government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's "Skhemy" project showed.

More than 15,000 citizens may be buried at the site, according to the Mariupol City Council.

The burial site's expansion may be connected to the Russians' clearing of the rubble of multi-story apartment buildings that were damaged or destroyed in Mariupol during their siege, according to Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's mayor.

Workers from the so-called "state funeral services" and forensic medical examiners controlled by the Russians removed the bodies from the rubble. Most were then taken to the cemetery in Staryi Krym, Andriushchenko added.

Dead residents have reportedly been buried en masse in such trenches since the city was occupied by Russian forces in May.

Aside from being buried in trenches, the dead can also be buried in individual graves. However, the Russians charge around 20,000 Ukrainian hryvnias ($675) for the service, according to Andriushchenko.

Relatives still have to wait about two weeks for their loved ones to be buried even if they availed of the paid service since wood is in short supply in Mariupol and coffins usually have to be brought in from Donetsk, another partially Russian-occupied region.

In addition to the mass burial site in Staryi Krym, Skhemy, which is Ukrainian for "schemes," has also reported on two other similar graves near Mariupol.

Both the villages of Vynogradne and Mangush had a cemetery each, while a satellite was able to record a fourth mass burial site in the heart of Mariupol.

Between 4,000 to 5,000 people may be buried in the graves located in Vynogradne and Mangush, Andriushchenko said.

"We think that the number of [the] dead must be much higher than 20,000 because the number of graves continued to grow. However, under the current conditions and the lack of access, it is impossible to realistically draw a conclusion about the number of victims," the official explained.

At least 22,000 civilians got killed in Mariupol during Russia's three-month-long siege of the city, Andriushchenko previously claimed.

"[I]ntentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities" is considered a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.