Survivors of the Russian airstrike that devastated a theater in the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukraine, have begun to emerge. The airstrike hit the theater despite that it was a designated shelter for about 1,000 civilians, including housing children and the elderly.
Rescuers worked to find survivors after the forces attacked the theater.
Mariupol is a southern port city that Russian forces have besieged. It links Crimea with Russian-backed enclaves in Ukraine and has been under intense, heavy Russian shelling and strikes for about two weeks. Experts say that Russia is clearly hellbent on taking the city, dead or alive. If Russia takes Mariupol, its hold on Ukraine’s southern coast would be strengthened.
Thousands of civilians have been trapped in Mariupol without power, electricity, heating, gas, and running water, and are running out of food and drinking water. People have had to resort to boiling snow to make water. Attempts for civilian evacuations have largely failed, with only one convoy being able to make its way out of the city.
Russia’s targeting of the civilian shelter has been widely condemned. As many as 1,000 or more people were in the theater and its shelter when it was attacked. At least 130 have been pulled from the rubble. Hundreds more remain trapped. How many actually survived is still unknown.
Satellite imagery from before the attack shows that the word “children” was written in Russian on the ground in front of and behind the theater in order to warn Russian planes to not target the shelter.
It is estimated that 50 to 100 bombs are dropped on the city every day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia’s military is razing Mariupol to the ground.
Russian airstrikes also hit a school and a community center in the city of Kharkiv, killing 21 people. More than 50 bodies arrived at morgues in the city of Chernihiv as rescuers cleared rubble from a basement of a theatre in the southern port city.
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