In Pictures

Photos: Mariupol residents suffer as Russian forces lay siege

Russian and Ukrainian authorities have committed to setting up evacuation routes but efforts have repeatedly collapsed.

People help an elderly woman to walk in a street with an apartment building hit by shelling in the background in Mariupol — People help an elderly woman to walk in a street, in front of an apartment building hit by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

By AP

Civilians in the besieged port of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine are anxiously waiting for news of evacuation efforts as they struggle to survive in a city where bodies have been left uncollected on the streets.

Mariupol has been without water, heat, sanitary systems or phones for several days, one of the most desperate scenes of the nearly two-week-old Russian war in Ukraine.

An estimated 200,000 people – nearly half the population of about 430,000 – hope to flee the city.

There have been repeated attempts to establish a humanitarian corridor to ease the suffering, only for ceasefire agreements to collapse under renewed shelling.

With water supplies cut, people have been collecting water from streams or melting snow.

Power cuts mean that many residents have lost internet access and now rely on their car radios for information, picking up news from stations broadcast from areas controlled by Russian or Russian-backed separatist forces.

Theft of food, clothes and even furniture has become widespread.

Russia is fighting hard for control of the port, which would ensure a land route to the Crimean Peninsula that it annexed in 2014.

People walk next to an apartment building hit by shelling in Mariupol, — People walk next to an apartment building hit by shelling. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

A man lights a fire under the kettle in a yard of an apartment building hit by shelling in Mariupol — A man lights a fire under a kettle in the yard of a house hit by shelling. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

The dead body of a person lies covered in the street in Mariupol, — The dead body of a person lies covered in the street. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

View of an abandoned supermarket in Mariupol — An abandoned supermarket in Mariupol. Theft of food, clothes and even furniture has become widespread. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

People queue to receive hot food in the improvised bomb shelter — People queue to receive hot food in an improvised bomb shelter. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

A girl sits in the improvised bomb shelter. Mariupol has been without water, heat, sanitary systems or phones for several days. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

An apartment building is destroyed by shelling in Mariupol, — A house destroyed by shelling in Mariupol. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

A fire is seen in a settlement area after shelling in Mariupol — A fire erupted after shelling in a neighbourhood in Mariupol. [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]

Ukraine’s second-largest city has been devastated, with civilians left homeless taking refuge in underground stations.

Russia announced yet another cease-fire and a handful of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to flee Ukraine.

Ukrainian soldiers and militiamen carry a woman in a wheelchair as the artillery echoes nearby, while people flee Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv

Government supporters are using the letter as a pro-war symbol to show solidarity with Russia’s armed forces.

Pedestrians cross a street in front of a billboard displaying the symbol "Z" in the colours of the ribbon of Saint George and a slogan reading: "We don't give up on our people", in support of the Russian armed forces, in Saint Petersburg

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its thirteenth day, we take a look at the main developments.

Women and children, fleeing from Ukraine, arrive on the platform of the train station in Przemysl,