Harrowing images show a heavily pregnant woman clutching her belongings, her face covered with cuts, as she walks down a bombed-out staircase at a maternity and children's hospital in the city of Mariupol, southern Ukraine. Inside, smashed incubators and bloodied beds lay among the wreckage.
Russian forces bombed the hospital Wednesday, Mariupol officials said — an attack described by Ukraine's President as an “atrocity" and "proof of a genocide."
Here's what we know:
- Mariupol city council accused Russia of dropping several bombs on the hospital from the air, destroying the medical facility building where children were recently being treated.
- The attack came despite Russia agreeing to a 12-hour pause in hostilities to allow refugees to evacuate a number of towns and cities.
- Police in the Donetsk region said according to preliminary information at least 17 people were injured, including mothers and staff. Ukraine's President said authorities were sifting through the rubble looking for victims.
- A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman claimed — without providing evidence — that Ukrainian forces had “equipped combat positions” within the hospital. Video from the hospital after the bombing clearly showed there were both patients and staff there, including pregnant women.
- The attack received international condemnation, with the UN saying it would follow up “urgently” on the “shocking reports,” and that health care facilities, hospitals and health workers should not “ever, ever be a target.”
Leader's reaction: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the bombing is "proof of a genocide of Ukrainians taking place" and repeated his call for NATO to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
"Children's hospital? Maternity ward? Why were they a threat to Russian Federation? What kind of country is the Russian Federation that is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity wards and destroys them?" he asked.
More bombings: A city administration building and a university in Mariupol, less than a kilometer from the bombed-out hospital, has been identified by CNN as a second location in the city hit by an apparent Russian military strike.
Evacuation corridor: The attacks came as humanitarian corridors were set up around Ukraine to evacuate civilians to safety. It is unclear if any people made it out of Mariupol, which has been has been under siege for days and isolated by Russian forces.
"Desperate situation": About 1,300 civilians have been killed in Mariupol since the Russian invasion began, two officials in the city said. Residents have been cut off from water and electricity for days, and on Tuesday Ukraine's Foreign Minister accused Russia of committing war crimes by holding 300,000 civilians “hostage.” Photos show bodies being placed into a mass grave in the city.
Destruction of city: New satellite images Wednesday from Maxar Technologies show homes, buildings, grocery stores and shopping malls across Mariupol damaged or destroyed in the fighting.