Russia bombed children’s hospital in Mariupol, alleges Ukraine

Ukraine alleged on Wednesday that Russia bombed a children’s hospital in port city of Mariupol. As per Ukraine, the bombing in the besieged city took place during a supposed ceasefire that was meant to facilitate escape of hundreds thousands of civilions in the city.

Russia had said it would hold fire to let civilians flee Mariupol and other besieged cities on Wednesday. But the city council said the hospital had been hit several times.

“The destruction is colossal,” it said in an online post.

President Volodymr Zelenskiy called it an “atrocity”.

“Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage,” he said on Twitter.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked by Reuters for comment on the reported bombing, said: “Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets.”

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry posted video footage of what appeared to be the badly damaged building of what it said was the children’s and maternity hospital.

The footage showed holes where windows should have been in a three-storey building at the hospital, and huge piles of rubble, some of it smouldering. Officials said they did not yet know any casualty figures. The reports could not immediately be verified.

Earlier Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia had broken the ceasefire around the southern port, which lies between Russian-backed separatist areas of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014.

“Russia continues holding hostage over 400,000 people in Mariupol, blocks humanitarian aid and evacuation. Indiscriminate shelling continues,” he wrote on Twitter. “Almost 3,000 newborn babies lack medicine and food.”

Local officials in other cities said some civilians had left on Wednesday through safe corridors, including out of Sumy in eastern Ukraine and Enerhodar in the south.

(With inputs from agencies)