Two Ukrainian Caritas employees and five of their relatives were killed in a bombardment in Mariupol, in the south-east of Ukraine, the Catholic charity announced on Tuesday April 12, referring to an attack in March.
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The attack “probably took place on March 15, when a tank fired at the Caritas center building in Mariupol, killing two staff members and five of their relatives,” Caritas Internationalis said in a statement. The organization specifies that it “does not yet have sufficient elements to determine what happened” but “the staff of Caritas and their families probably took refuge in the center during the bombardment”. The Holy See’s news portal, Vatican News, referred to a Russian tank, citing unnamed “local Caritas sources”.
“The Caritas family is horrified and shocked by this dramatic news,” reacted the secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, Aloysius John, quoted by the press release. He called on “the international community” to “do everything possible to immediately stop this massacre”. For more than 40 days, the Russian army and Donetsk separatists have besieged the strategic port city of Mariupol, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, where they have encountered fierce resistance despite intense bombardments and a catastrophic humanitarian situation.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he believed “tens of thousands” of people had been killed in the city of 500,000 people, cut off from the rest of the world. For their part, the pro-Russian authorities estimated the civilian losses at around 5,000 people and the housing destroyed at “60-70%”.
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