War in Ukraine: what we know about the bombing of a pediatric hospital


The Russian army on Wednesday bombed a pediatric hospital in Mariupol, a strategic port in southeastern Ukraine, sparking outrage among Ukrainian authorities, humanitarian officials and Westerners.

17 adults injured

The bombs hit a hospital complex, which also includes a maternity ward. “There are 17 confirmed injured among hospital staff”, announced on television a regional official, Pavlo Kirilenko, specifying that “there was no child” among the injured and “no death”, according to a first assessment. .

“Everything was destroyed during an air raid by Russian aircraft over Mariupol,” he wrote a few minutes earlier on his Facebook page.

The attack occurred while women were giving birth in the hospital, which had just been re-equipped, a member of the military administration of the Donetsk region told AFP.

At least 19 attacks have been perpetrated against health care facilities, health personnel and ambulances, killing at least ten people, since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, according to data from the World Health Organization. Health (WHO).

Impressive images

In a video released by the Ukrainian presidency, the interior of buildings can be seen blown away, with debris, sheets of paper and pieces of glass littering the ground.

Other videos shot outside the hospital bear witness to the violence of this air raid.

Photos circulating on social networks also show pregnant women being evacuated on stretchers.

Immediate reactions

Oleksiy Arestovitch, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, said on television that the bombing of the Mariupol maternity ward was “just the beginning” and that a “completely different war was about to begin”.

On the Western side, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson blasted an “immoral” attack. In the United States, the spokeswoman for the American executive Jen Psaki considered it “atrocious to see the kind of barbaric use of military force against innocent civilians in a sovereign country”.

UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said she was “horrified” by the attack and the UN reminded that no health facility “must be a target”.

In Moscow, the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova for her part affirmed during a press briefing that Ukrainian “nationalist battalions” had made patients and staff leave the hospital to use it as a base for shots.

Mariupol under the bombs

“Mariupol is facing a humanitarian crisis”, wrote on Telegram Liudmyla Denisova, in charge of human rights at the Ukrainian Parliament, stressing that “the Russian army has bombarded Mariupol with heavy artillery since early this morning”. The planned evacuation route to the nearby town of Zaporozhye “has not been cleared”, she said.

For his part, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba deplored the “barbarism” of the Russian army, again imploring the West to “give planes, now”, a request repeated in recent days by Kiev to face the crisis. Russian army.

1,207 people have died in Mariupol since the start of the Russian siege, the mayor of the city said on Wednesday. Some 300,000 civilians have been pinned down for days by fighting in the strategic port of Mariupol, in the south-east of the country, on the Sea of ​​Azov, deprived of water, food and electricity and where humanitarian aid couldn’t happen.





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