Ukraine hospital attack killed 3, wounded 17, say officials
An airstrike on a hospital in the port city of Mariupol killed three people, including a child, the city council said Thursday, as Russian forces intensified their siege of Ukrainian cities.
The attack in the southern port city wounded women waiting to give birth and doctors and buried children in the rubble. Bombs also fell on two hospitals in another city west of the capital.
The World Health Organisation said it has confirmed 18 attacks on medical facilities since the Russian invasion began two weeks ago.
Turkey, meanwhile, was hosting the highest-level talks so far between the two sides on Thursday. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba “will open the door to a permanent cease-fire.” But Kuleba said he did not have high expectations.
Ahead of those talks, artillery fire was heard on the western edge of Kyiv, Deputy Interior Minister Vadym Denysenko said.
He told Ukrainian TV channel Rada that residents had a “rather difficult” night on the outskirts of the capital in which Russian forces started by targeting military sites but then hit residential areas.
Ukrainian officials said the attack on Wednesday at a medical complex in Mariupol, where a siege has forced residents to scavenge for food and water, killed three people, including a girl, and wounded at least 17 people.
The ground shook more than a mile away when the series of blasts hit. Explosions blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building. Police and soldiers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying a bleeding woman with a swollen belly on a stretcher past burning and mangled cars.
Another woman wailed as she clutched her child. In the courtyard, a blast crater extended at least two stories deep.
“Today Russia committed a huge crime,” said Volodymir Nikulin, a top regional police official, standing in the ruins. “It is a war crime without any justification.”
