Sixty people were killed after the bombardment on Saturday of a school in the separatist region of Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces refocused their offensive. Here’s what we know about the drama.
Civilians taking refuge
According to regional governor Serguiï Gaïdaï, around 90 people had taken refuge in this school in the village of Bilogorivka. “The bombs hit the school and unfortunately it was completely destroyed,” the governor said on Telegram.
Of the total of 90 people, “27 were saved”. “Sixty people who were in the school are most likely dead,” continued the regional governor. Later in the day on Sunday, during a videoconference intervention at a G7 summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that these sixty people were killed in the bombardment.
A site difficult to access for rescuers
The emergency services were unable to access the bombing site during the night because of the strikes. “They would have had to light up the site, which would have attracted further bombardment,” the official explained. The first images of the bombed establishment were released this Sunday by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Rescuers also went to the neighboring village of Chepilivka on Sunday, where a shell hit a house in which 11 people were. “There is a better chance that people survived there,” Sergiï Gaïdaï said, explaining that the people were in a basement and that it was an artillery fire and not a bomb dropped by an airplane.
The Russians maintain their offensive in the east
In early April, the Russian army refocused its offensive in the Donbass region. “The enemy has not ceased offensive operations in the eastern operational zone in order to establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson regions, and to maintain the land corridor between these territories and occupied Crimea” since 2014 , the Ukrainian general staff said on Sunday.
He said that in the Donetsk region, Russian troops continued their offensive operations around Lyman, Popasnyansky, Severodonetsk and Avdiivka. And that the situation was “tense” on the side of Moldova.