In the more than three weeks since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, few areas have seen the terrors of war more up close than the besieged southern port city, Mariupol.
More than 2,400 civilians have been killed in the city since the beginning of the invasion but officials fear the death toll is much higher.
Russian airstrikes have pounded nonmilitary buildings, including a local theater where hundreds were sheltered. Just days earlier a maternity hospital was decimated — a direct attack on Ukraine’s most vulnerable.
About 30,000 people have escaped the city but hundreds of thousands remain trapped with nowhere to go. The surrounding roads are mined and the port is blocked. Food is running out and the Russians have stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in.
Photos from the Associated Press offer a glimpse into the devastation and suffering but also the resilience of the Ukrainian people. These are the civilians of Mariupol.
Editor’s note: The following images are graphic. Reader discretion is advised.
a maternity hospital ATTACKED
Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022.
Mariana Vishegirskaya stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Vishegirskaya survived the shelling and later gave birth to a girl in another hospital in Mariupol.
A man holds a baby during an evacuation from a maternity hospital damaged by a shelling attack in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Associated Press journalists, who have been reporting from inside blockaded Mariupol since early in the war, documented this attack on the hospital and saw the victims and damage firsthand. They shot video and photos of several bloodstained, pregnant mothers fleeing the blown-out maternity ward, medics shouting, children crying.
A medical worker walks through the hall of a maternity hospital damaged in a shelling attack in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Associated Press journalists, who have been reporting from inside blockaded Mariupol since early in the war documented this attack on the hospital and saw the victims and damage firsthand. They shot video and photos of several bloodstained, pregnant mothers fleeing the blown-out maternity ward, medics shouting, children crying.
A CITY UNDER SEIGE
An explosion is seen in an apartment building after a Russian army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022.
Women and children sit on the floor of a corridor in a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine Friday, March 11, 2022.
Serhii, father of teenager Iliya, cries on his son’s lifeless body lying on a stretcher at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022.
A man walks with a bicycle in a street damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Dead bodies are placed in a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022 as people cannot bury their dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces.
People lie on the floor of a hospital during shelling by Russian forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022.
Marina Yatsko and her boyfriend Fedor comfort each other after her 18-month-old son Kirill was killed in shelling in a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022.
People look at a burning apartment building in a yard after shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022.
Serhiy Kralya, 41, looks at the camera after surgery at a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine on Friday, March 11, 2022. Kralya was injured during shelling by Russian forces.
Anastasia Erashova cries as she hugs her child in a corridor of a hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine on Friday, March 11, 2022. Anastasia’s other child was killed during the shelling of Mariupol.
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022.