Both the theater and the pool are said to have been used as a refuge for civilians in the center of Mariupol when it was bombed on Wednesday. – This is terror, writes adviser in the Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, in a message to VG.
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The city council of the besieged city in southern Ukraine says Russia has “deliberately and cynically destroyed the theater in the heart of Mariupol,” according to The Kyiv Independent.
Deputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov estimates that between 1,000 and 1,200 people had sought refuge inside the theater when it was bombed, he says to BBC.
Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko writes in the Telegram that several hundred Mariupol residents hid in the theater.
– What happened to them is unknown, since the entrance to the bomb room is blocked, he writes.
Therefore, it is currently impossible to determine the number of victims, according to the governor.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, denies that airstrikes were carried out in Mariupol during the day, and instead claims that it is the Ukrainian Azov battalion that is behind the attack, according to TASS.
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NOW: Pictures on the Telegram service show great destruction of the theater. 1 of 2Foto: Mariupol_now/Telegram
–– Swimming pool with pregnant women and children
Kyrylenko writes that also an indoor swimming pool in Mariupol, Neptune, was bombed in the airstrikes against the city on Wednesday. According to the governor, pregnant women and children had sought refuge in the building.
– Similarly, there were only civilians in Neptune. Now pregnant women and women with children are under the ruins. This is pure terrorism! he writes.
Several Ukrainian media also write that women and children were staying in the Neptune building when it was bombed.
– The number of victims can be enormous
– This is terror, writes adviser in the Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, in a message to VG.
He follows up with the following:
– The occupiers dropped a very powerful bomb on the theater in Mariupol. There were defenseless people hiding in this building. The number of victims can be huge, he writes.
Mariupol has been besieged for a long time and Russian forces have carried out heavy artillery and bomb attacks on the city.
On Tuesday, the governor claimed that Russian forces had entered a hospital in Mariupol and taken patients and staff hostage.
Tried to evacuate the city
Between 300,000 and 400,000 are trapped in the city without water, electricity and gas.
There have been several attempts to evacuate civilians from the city and create humanitarian corridors to the city to evacuate, and to send food and emergency aid.
On Tuesday, around 2,000 cars managed to leave Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine, the city council said on Tuesday afternoon.
Before the war, about 450,000 people lived in the city. Several thousand managed to escape from the city in the first days of the war.
Then Mariupol was surrounded and besieged, and since then the city has been subjected to many attacks.
The attacks on the besieged city have been described as one humanitarian disaster by, among others, MSF.
Several of the city’s residents are said to have been buried in mass graves.
The case is being updated.
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