Russia bombards children’s hospital in besieged Mariupol, Zelenskyy says
Lviv, Ukraine, Mar 9 (EFE).- Russian military forces bombarded a children’s hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Wednesday, burying people, including children, under the rubble, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
“Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity!” the Ukrainian president said on Twitter, before renewing his plea for a no-fly zone above Ukraine.
He shared footage purportedly showing the destruction at the hospital.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the military administration in the region in southeast Ukraine, said in a Facebook video that the maternity and therapy departments at the hospital in central Mariupol were completely destroyed in the attack.
The city, strategically located on the Sea of Azov near the Russian border, has been surrounded by Russian forces pincering from the south and east.
Ukrainian lawmaker Dmytro Gurin on Wednesday told the BBC that Mariupol had three days of supplies left following days of constant Russian bombardment which has left the city’s residents without water and electricity.
He added that the Mariupol mayor’s office informed that the city’s streets were littered with corpses and that authorities were digging mass graves to bury the dead.
Fresh attempts to evacuate civilians via humanitarian corridors resumed in Mariupol on Wednesday after several previous efforts were marred by ceasefire violations by Russian forces, according to Kyiv officials.
The United Nations human rights office on Wednesday said it had confirmed 516 civilians, including 37 children, have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine two weeks ago, although added that the exact number was likely higher.EFE
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