Ukraine war: I fear my family are silently dying in Mariupol

A Scottish primary school teacher fears her family are "slowly and silently dying" in a cellar in Ukraine.

Elena Coventry, 48, who lives in Penicuik, Midlothian, lost communication with her mother and brother almost two weeks ago.

She said it was unbearable not knowing if they were alive or dead.

They are thought to be among tens of thousands of civilians trapped in southern port city of Mariupol, which is encircled by Russian forces.

The British Red Cross says there are severe food and water shortages in the city and its supply of electricity and gas is fragmented.

There have been reports that people are using snow to drink water and trying to cook food on open fires outside.

Ms Coventry said her 82-year-old mother, Luda Petrenko, and her brother Dmitriy Petrenko, 46, were in the Mariupol's Vostochny district.

"My mother and brother are just two of the more than 80,000 people stuck in the Left Bank area because they were hiding in their cellar so they didn't know about the evacuation buses," she said.

"It's all high rise tower blocks there and underneath are cellars where the utility pipes are and that's where everyone is hiding, it's not a bunker.

"Although they are told to always have food supplies these will have run out by now."

She added: "They have been sitting in a cold, dark cellar for a long time now and I don't know if they have any food left or if my brother has been forced to go off to fight, leaving my mother behind.

"It's a humanitarian catastrophe. Nobody can get to them to help. They need help. I don't know what to do. I am so worried. This is horrendous."

Ms Coventry left Ukraine 20 years ago when she married her Scottish husband, Andrew.

The mother-of-two said she had been beside herself with worry about her family.

She said: "I cannot describe the feeling of not knowing how much they are suffering or if they are dead or alive.

"How can I describe how I feel thinking how they are slowly and silently dying right now?"

Mariupol, a city of about 400,000, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

The city has now been subjected to several days of heavy bombardment by Russian forces, destroying apartment buildings and flattening residential areas.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, said on Thursday that the situation in Mariupol was the most difficult in the country.

On Wednesday, three people - two adults and a girl - were killed in Mariupol and 17 were wounded in a devastating strike that destroyed a maternity ward and children's ward of a hospital.

Ms Coventry has joined a internet forum of people who have family in Ukraine.

Some pictures have been been uploaded from the area and she has identified her mother's house as having no windows left.

She said: "I saw a bird's eye view picture and recognised my mother's flat.

"The windows are gone, it looks like a human with its eyes gouged out. People had their lives in those flats, they ate, they drank but now it's horror."

She said her Roman Catholic faith was helping her remain hopeful that her mother and brother were still alive. Her father, Ivan, died last year.

The Left Bank area, where they are trapped, is completely cut off from the rest of Mariupol and their only way out to the east is through military lines, she added.

"I'm losing my eyesight looking at my phone so much as I try to follow any and all information coming from there," Ms Coventry added.