Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his 'heart breaks' over Russia's continued attacks on Ukrainian civilians, after a theatre thought to be sheltering hundreds of people was destroyed by a bomb.
Russian forces hit the theatre in Mariupol on Wednesday, March 16, with Ukrainian officials saying that hundreds of people, including children, had been living in the building since their own homes where destroyed in the heavy Russian bombardment of the city.
Referring to the attack – the latest in a pattern of Russian shelling and missile attacks apparently targeting residential areas – Zelenskyy said 'my heart breaks from what Russia is doing to our people, to our Mariupol'.
Russia had 'purposefully dropped a huge bomb' on the theatre, he claimed in his nightly address, adding that 'the death toll is still unknown'.
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Local officials could not confirm how many people were inside the building when it was hit, but the city's deputy mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that up to 1,200 had used the theatre as a shelter, with many of them feared to be buried under the rubble.
Rescuers attempting to reach the site had been hampered by heavy shelling, however this morning local officials reported that bomb shelter under the theatre appeared to have survived the attack intact, with crews working to evacuate survivors.
In a statement, Mariupol's city council accused Russia of 'deliberately and cynically destroying' the theatre by using a plane to drop a bomb on the building, which satellite images showed had 'children' written in large letters on the ground outside. The council joined Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba in claiming the attack constituted a 'war crime'.
'Women, children, and the elderly remain in the enemy's sights. These are completely unarmed peaceful people. We will never forgive and never forget,' the council said in its statement.
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Russia denied bombing the theatre or any other residential areas in Mariupol. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the city, which has been the scene of some of the worst Russian bombardments, with many more struggling to find food, water and electricity amid continued obstructions to efforts to establish humanitarian corridors in and out of Mariupol.
Elsewhere, in the northern city of Chernihiv, at least 10 people were feared dead after Russian forces reportedly open fire on a queue of people outside a bakery.
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Topics: Russia, Ukraine, World News, Volodymyr Zelensky
