TOPACCOLADE NEWS

Children living among the ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, now under Russian occupation, have been reported to be eating rats and drinking rain water out of bomb craters just to survive.

These acts of hardship and desperation come as aid to the city has been halted numerous times first by the Russian encirclement of Mariupol and now it's occupation.

Children as young as 3 and as old as 14 are on the brink of starving to death unless they commit these actions, many were witnessed with tears running down their face as they snapped the necks of rats and drank the dirty rain water.

Russia was issued with the usual condemnations from NATO and UN countries, but with the new edition of not allowing aid to Mariupol.

Out of the roughly 7,000 civilians killed in Mariupol, about 300 were children under the age of 16.