A Russian rocket attack on Mariupol in Ukraine is said to have hit a maternity hospital and children’s hospital. This is reported by the city council of the besieged port city. Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko currently speaks of “seventeen injured, including some women who were in labor”. “There are no children, let’s hope it stays that way,” he says. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack an “atrocity”.
Mariupol’s administration said “several bombs” had fallen on the hospital and the “destruction was colossal”. Ukrainian MP Dmitry Gurin told BBC News that it is a maternity-cum-children’s hospital. “It is one big complex”, it sounds. It has 600 beds.
View the images below:
According to the Ukrainian newspaper ‘Ukrayinska Pravda’, the bombs were thrown from planes. Eyewitnesses say the epicenter of the explosions was located in the courtyard, between the buildings of the maternity hospital and the children’s ward. There would also have been a huge crater.
Crater
Images distributed by Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk show a rescue worker descending into a crater and it can be concluded that it is several meters deep.
Oleksandra Matviichuk
@avalaina
The attack took place at a time when a ceasefire was in effect, allowing residents of Mariupol to flee the city. Attempts to evacuate them have been unsuccessful since Saturday.
The chaos in the besieged city is now complete. Yesterday, the Red Cross called the situation “apocalyptic”. There is looting, there are dead bodies in the streets and residents have had no access to food, drink, medicines, electricity and heating for several days.
About 400,000 inhabitants live in the port city under constant bombardments. They have been surrounded by Russian troops for a week. According to Deputy Mayor Sergiy Orlov, a genocide is taking place. 1,170 residents are said to have already been killed and 47 are still buried in a mass grave today.
People drink melted snow and burn wood to warm themselves. “It’s medieval,” Orlov told the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’. He also speaks of “war crimes” as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Twitter.
Dmytro Kuleba
@DmytroKuleba
Anton Gerashchenko – an adviser to the Ukrainian government – calls the situation “a humanitarian disaster”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already condemned the attack on the maternity center in Mariupol. “There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenseless,” he said on Twitter. “We will hold Putin to account for his terrible crimes.”
His foreign secretary, Liz Truss, called the attack “abhorrent, reckless and appalling”.
Boris Johnson
@BorisJohnson
Check out the full footage of the wreckage here:
Read all about the conflict in Ukraine in our file.
Nearly 50 civilians killed in Russian ‘dumb bomb’ attack on Chernihiv: ‘Should be investigated as a war crime’
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