The city of Mariupol said in multiple statements on Saturday that Russian soldiers removed thousands of residents from the city against their will and took them across the border back to Russia.
According to CNN, the Mariupol City Council said residents were taken to camps in Russian territory where they had their phones and documents checked. Some residents were directed to remote Russian cities and the fate of the others is unknown.
According to The New York Times, an assistant to Mariupol's mayor told them that 4,000 to 4,500 residents moved to the Russian city of Taganrog without their passports.
According to The Times, Andryuschenko said that they would be at the mercy of the people who had taken them across the border if they had proof that they were used for forced labor.
The Times was unable to independently verify the figures Andryuschenko provided, but other residents who fled the city had corroborate certain details. The doctor who fled Mariupol told The Times he knew of three families who were taken by Russian soldiers and sent to Taganrog.
Zarubin told the newspaper that one of his friends who was taken sent him a message saying he wasn't allowed to return to Ukraine.
The Mayor of Mariupol likened the developments to Nazi Germany and the forcible removal of Jews to concentration camps.
The events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people, are familiar to the older generation.
Thousands of people are missing or dead after intense shelling in Mariupol. A theater, a mosque, and a maternity hospital were among the Russian targets.
The Mariupol attacks are the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet, with no access to water, heating, and gas, and limited food supplies.
The entire city has become a battlefield according to Andryushenko.
He said that they are still defending the city.
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