Ukrainian refugees, April 2022 (video screenshot)
(FOX NEWS) – The mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol said that roughly 31,000 residents have been forcibly deported and sent to Russian "filtration camps" in occupied eastern Ukraine.
Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in a Telegram post Friday that he had "verified" that Ukrainians from the southern port city were being taken "at gunpoint" to a camp in Novoazovsk – a Ukrainian border town 35 miles from Mariupol and just 9 miles from the Russian border.
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Novoazovsk is located in the Donetsk People’s Republic – a breakaway region in Ukraine’s most eastern front that has been backed by Russian forces and engaged in armed conflict with the Ukrainian army since 2014.
