More than half of the whole child population in Ukraine have been displaced from their homes since Russia launched a full-scale invasion on February 24, the United Nations said.
One month of war in Ukraine has led to the displacement of 4.3 million child population, which accounts for more than half of the country’s estimated 7.5 million child population, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said in a statement, adding that 1.8 million children had fled the country as refugees and 2.5 million were now displaced in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Russian forces were held for questioning by Ukraine after Russian forces bombed a theatre where civilians were sheltering in the besieged southern city of Mariupol. Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said that between 1,000 and 1,200 people had sought refuge in the building.
While the number of sufferers is still unclear, a local MP said the basement where people were gathered had withstood the bombing. Viktor Zolotov, chief of Russia’s National Guard and a member of Putin’s Security Council, said progress had been slower than expected, blaming what he called far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians.
“I would like to say that yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like,” Zolotov said in comments posted on the National Guard’s website. But we are going towards our goal step by step, and victory will be for us,” he added.
“It looks like most of them have survived,” Dmytro Gurin told the BBC. But Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, earlier said emergency workers were struggling to reach the building due to constant shelling.
Images of the theatre, verified by the BBC, showed extensive damage and smoke rising from the site. Russia’s air strikes and shells have till now hit a maternity hospital, a church, and apartment buildings.
Mariupol’s city council said in a statement that Russian forces “deliberately and cynically destroyed” the theatre, saying a “plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding.”
Both Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, and the city council accused Russia of a “war crime” in the wake of the attack. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, denounced the bombing and said Russia had deliberately targeted the theatre.
“Our hearts are broken by what Russia is doing to our people. “To our Mariupol,” he said in a video address late Wednesday evening.
Russian word for “children” was marked to warn Russian jets away
Satellite pictures which were taken on March 14th, released by the US company Maxar, showed that the Russian word for “children” had been marked on the ground in large letters to warn Russian jets away from the building, many children and elderly people were sheltering inside, and that conditions were quickly deteriorating.
Local authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol since the start of the war, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.
An estimated 300,000 residents are trapped inside the city, where running water, electricity, and gas have been cut off. Food and water supplies are running low as Russian troops have not allowed the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Hours after news of the destruction emerged, the Russian defence ministry denied it had carried out an air strike against the theatre, the RIA news agency reported. About 1,500 cars managed to flee Mariupol on Wednesday, according to Mr. Orlov, the deputy mayor.
But, he said, an attack by Russia on the convoy left at least five wounded, including a child.
Published by – Kiruthiga K
Edited by – Kritika Kashyap
