Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused the Russians of “hiding their military crimes” by taking the bodies of civilians from the city and burying them in Manhush.

The graves could hold as many as 9,000 dead, the Mariupol City Council said Thursday in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

“The bodies of the dead were being brought by the truckload and actually simply being dumped in mounds,” Piotr Andryushchenko, an aide to Mr Boychenko, said on Telegram.

Three weeks ago mass graves filled with hundreds of civilians were uncovered in Bucha and other towns around Kyiv afer Russian troops withdrew eastward. 

People have been fleeing from Mariupol through the city of Zaporizhzhia. 

“What was happening there was so horrible that you can’t describe it,” said Polina Lulac, who recently escaped. “Mariupol is gone. In the courtyards there are just graves and crosses.”