KIEV/MOSCOW: The humanitarian crisis in Severodonetsk, which has been the scene of weeks of fighting, is growing more dire by the day, officials said on Tuesday, as Russia intensified its efforts to capture the key eastern Ukrainian city.
"We fear that up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in the crossfire in the city, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity'', Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said in a statement.
The twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, located just across the river, were home to 380,000 people before the war. Severodonetsk, in particular, has been devastated by Russian aerial and artillery bombardments.
Some 90 per cent of homes have been damaged and more than two-thirds totally destroyed, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The NRC said it, along with local partners, distributed food and hygiene items to civilians remaining in the area last week, but that the escalating fighting now made such deliveries impossible.
The continuous shelling was forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, while there were few escape routes left out of the city, Egeland said.
"We cannot save lives under the hail of grenades'', he said. Kiev said on Tuesday that the battle for control of Severodonetsk has entered its decisive phase as Russian forces focused on outlying areas of the city.
Severodonetsk is the largest city in the Donbass region still under Ukrainian control, but Kiev's grip appears to be loosening.
Leonid Pasechnik, the head of pro-Russian separatists forces in the Luhansk region, was quoted by Russia's TASS news agency as saying that one-third of the city was under their control.
The BBC quoted Oleksandr Stryuk, the head of the city's administration, as telling Ukrainian TV: "The frontline has cut the city into two halves, but the city is still defending (itself), the city is still Ukrainian."
Further Russian ground assaults were reported from the region of Bakhmut to the west, with Russian forces attacking the villages of Zolote, Komyshuvakha, Berestove, Pokrovske and Dolomitne.
The attacks around Bakhmut were apparently intended to cut off Severodonetsk and Lysychansk from supply lines. Russia has been aiming to encircle Ukrainian forces for days now.
Meanwhile, pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine said they have seized several merchant cargo ships docked in the port of Mariupol.
"Some of the ships will come under the jurisdiction of the Donetsk People's Republic'', separatist leader Denis Pushilin said on Tuesday,according to the Interfax news agency. The ships would be renamed and become part of an emerging merchant fleet operated by the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic."
Before the war, Mariupol was Ukraine's largest port city on the Seaof Azov, with a population of more than 400,000, and also a centre of the steel industry. It has now been 90 per cent destroyed by months Russian bombardment.
According to Pushilin, mines and other explosive devices that were placed in the approach canals and waterways of the port have been totally cleared.
The first ship to leave the city since Russia took control was now headed to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. It was carrying 2,500 tonnes of metal, Pushilin said.
Ukraine calls the shipment of metal "looting'', saying Moscow and its allied separatists were stealing strategically important goods. As much as 500,000 tonnes of grain from occupied territories in Ukraine are also said to have been shipped to Russia.
Elsewhere in Mariupol, the Russian military said it found the bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters in the underground bunkers of the Azovstal steelworks it captured earlier this month after a protracted siege. — dpa
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