Using images captured by Planet Labs PBC, a private satellite operator, CIR estimated that by 12 May the number of graves at the Mariupol Starokrymske cemetery had increased by 1,700 since the start of the war, and by 29 June another 1,400 graves had been added, bringing the total number dug since the invasion to 3,100.
Images show that during the prewar period between 21 October and 28 March, approximately 1,000 graves were added.
Since Russia captured Mariupol, the city has seen no further fighting, and the roughly 90,000 Ukrainians who remain have been
left with little access to electricity, phone, internet, water or healthcare.
CIR said the increase in graves during peacetime could be explained by hundreds of bodies being uncovered under destroyed buildings in the city.
At the end of May, Petro Andryushchenko, a senior aide to Mariupol’s Ukrainian mayor now operating outside the Russian-held city, said about 200 decomposing bodies had been found buried in the basement of a Mariupol high-rise.
In total, Andryushchenko estimated that
22,000 people died in the city in the two months of fighting. One person among several coordinating burials in the city previously told the Guardian that the total could be closer to 50,000.