Fears for hundreds of civilians trapped in Mariupol steel plant

According to local officials, between 300 and 1,000 people, including women and children, could still be trapped in the steelworks, a sprawling mass of tunnels and workshops spread over four square miles in the south-east of the city, scene of the worst humanitarian crisis of the nearly two-month war.

Speaking in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Putin, who claimed the city had fallen into Russian hands, apart from the Azovstal metalworks, ordered his forces not to storm the factory complex, after his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the Russian army was still fighting thousands of Ukrainian soldiers there.

However, due to the lack of telecommunication in the city, after the Russian troops bombed radio towers in Mariupol during the first days of invasion, concerns are rising over the fate of civilians and soldiers.

The graves could hold up to 9,000 bodies, the Mariupol city council said via Telegram.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, will visit Moscow on 25 April to meet Putin, a United Nations spokesperson said.

On Friday, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) sounded the alarm about growing evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, urging Moscow and Kyiv to order combatants to respect international law.

UN human rights monitors in Ukraine have also documented what appeared to be the use of weapons with indiscriminate effects, causing civilian casualties, by Ukrainian armed forces in the east of the country, the OHCHR said.

During a mission to Bucha on 9 April, UN human rights officers documented the unlawful killing, including by summary execution, of about 50 civilians, it said.

On Thursday, the Guardian revealed the use by Russian troops of a number of weapons widely banned across the world, which have killed hundreds of civilians in Kyiv.

Evidence collected by the Guardian during a visit to Bucha, Hostomel and Borodianka, and reviewed by independent weapons experts, showed Russian troops had used cluster munitions, cluster bombs and extremely powerful unguided bombs in populated areas, which had destroyed at least eight civilian buildings.

Meanwhile, according to a top Russian general quoted by Russian news agencies, Moscow will try to seize eastern and southern Ukraine as its main objective in the war.

And as the Orthodox Christian Easter approaches, Zelenskiy, said Russia had rejected a proposed Easter truce but he remained hopeful of prospects for peace.