Qatar - Hundreds feared trapped in Ukraine theater hit by airstrike
Date
3/17/2022 6:01:07 AM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AP
KYIV: Ukrainian authorities struggled to determine the fate of hundreds of civilians who had been sheltering in a theater smashed by a Russian airstrike in the besieged city of Mariupol as officials said Russian artillery Thursday destroyed more civilian buildings in another frontline city.
A photo released by Mariupol's city council showed an entire section of the large, 3-story theater had collapsed after the strike Wednesday evening. Several hundred people had taken refuge in the building, seeking safety amid Russia's 3-week, strangulating siege of the strategic Azov Sea port city.
At least as recently as Monday, the pavement in front of and behind the once-elegant theater was marked with huge white letters spelling out 'CHILDREN” in Russian, according to images released by the Maxar space technology company.
Rubble had buried the entrance to the shelter inside the theater, and it was not yet known how many people were killed or injured, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration, said on Telegram.
Russian airstrikes also hit a municipal swimming pool complex in Mariupol where civilians, including women and children, had been sheltering, Kyrylenko said. 'Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there,” he wrote, thought the number of casualties was not immediately known.
'My heart breaks from what Russia is doing to our people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday night after the theater strike. Hours earlier, he delivered a speech via video to the U.S. Congress that garnered several ovations as he called for more help.
The Russian defense ministry denied bombing the theater or anywhere else in Mariupol on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center in Merefa, a city near the northeast city of Kharkiv, according to Merefa's mayor Veniamin Sitov. There were no known civilian casualties. The Kharkiv region has seen heavy bombardment as stalled Russian forces try to advance in the area.
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