Pictures from Mariupol show how the besieged Ukrainian city has been “completely devastated” after weeks of bombardment by Russian forces.

Every single building is either burnt or broken, according a photographer who visited Mariupol.

A theatre being used as a shelter was hit by a reported Russian airstrike on 16 March, killing around 300 people, according to authorities.

The word “children” had been displayed in Russian in huge white letters on the ground outside in an attempt to ward off an aerial attack.

Photographer Max Clarke said it was “almost beyond description how devastated that city is”.

He told Sky News: “The sheer intensity of bombardment has taken people here by surprise.”

Devastation is ‘difficult to exaggerate’

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Asked how bad the situation on the ground is, Mr Clarke said: ‘It’s difficult to exaggerate how completely devastated the city is. There is not a single building that is either unburnt or unbroken.

“The people are just traumatised and dazed. They are living without electricity or food or heat. The temperature’s recently risen but it has been sub-zero temperatures until last week.

“The fires are still burning, people have been cooking on wood fires outside their bomb shelters or in their bomb shelters.

“There are no shops, no banks, no provisions. Everything that hasn’t burned down has been looted and anyone who can leave has left.

“There are still said to be up to 100,000 people still unable to leave or unwilling to leave who just don’t have anything at all and are just staying with whatever meagre possessions they have in their basements and just coming out to cook and occasionally get some light, but I don’t know what they see the future to be.”

He added: “I’ve never seen devastation on this scale.”

‘Freshly dug graves everywhere’

Asked about reports of mass graves and bodies in the streets, Mr Clarke said: “The bodies are largely being buried by now but there are still some, we can certainly smell them in piles of rubble that are inaccessible.

“There are dogs feeding on chunks of bone, human bone, bits of people. There are freshly dug graves everywhere.

“I am yet to see these mass graves but other photographers have. I’ve been looking at their work and there are people being buried in trenches by the side of the road and just body parts scattered. Burnt out vehicles and shelled vehicles with the charred remains of their drivers still there.

“We saw one blackened body when we drove in and then the next day it was missing limbs and had various red, exposed flesh, because the dogs had been eating him overnight. So it’s pretty hellish.”

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