Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen, the Chabad emissary to Mariupol, is currently on the border between Moldova and Romania but is keeping in touch with the situation in the Ukrainian city he recently fled.
"We are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis," Rabbi Cohen told Radio 103FM. "People are going out into the streets there to gather snow to wash with, to brush their teeth, to have water to drink. And there's nothing to eat. The stores are empty and the pharmacies are too."
Rabbi Cohen sharply condemned the Russians, saying, "They are waging a psychological war in the cruelest manner possible. They issue an update on a humanitarian corridor while they continue to shoot. Anyone who tries to leave is taking a huge risk. On Shabbat, we tried to rescue people while under fire and we were just waiting for a green light that it was safe to leave - and then we found out that while the buses were waiting in the parking lot, twenty of them were destroyed.
"I know from someone who saw it himself that there are dead bodies in the streets," he added. "No one approaches them because it's simply impossible to carry them away," due to the bombings.
Ashdod resident Tatyana Goldin who saw her mother on television in a Mariupol street, screaming for help, said, "I want to remind the whole world that there is just one Babyn Yar but it's going to double in size. Please, create humanitarian corridors for the people to leave. That's all we're asking for."