‘Why? Why? Why?’ Ukraine’s Mariupol descends into despair

By MYSTYSLAV CHERNOV, EVGENIY MALOLETKA and LORI HINNANT
Associated Press

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The bodies of the children all lie here, dumped into this narrow trench hastily dug into the frozen earth of Mariupol to the constant drumbeat of shelling. There’s 18-month-old Kirill, 16-year-old Iliya, the small girl who was among the first of Mariupol’s children to die in a Russian attack. Each airstrike and shell that relentlessly pounds Mariupol – about one a minute at times in recent days – drives home the curse of a geography that has put the city squarely in the path of Russia’s domination of Ukraine. In the more than two weeks since Russia’s war began, two AP journalists have been the only international media present in Mariupol, chronicling its fall into chaos and despair.