Moscow: Russia is being blasted left, right and centre for a massive airstrike which devastated a maternity hospital in the under-attack Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, reportedly leaving at least 17 people including children wounded.
United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the attack as ‘horrific’ and called for an end to the senseless violence, while the Western Bloc termed it as ‘barbaric and depraved’.
“Today’s attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children’s wards are located, is horrific. Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them. This senseless violence must stop. End the bloodshed now,” Guterres tweeted.
Today’s attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children’s wards are located, is horrific.
Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them.
This senseless violence must stop.
End the bloodshed now.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 9, 2022
A UN spokesman said any health facility should never be a target.
The White House slammed the ‘barbaric’ use of force against civilians and targeting a children’s hospital, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the attack “depraved”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the ‘atrocity’ and claimed that children and others were trapped under the rubble following the airstrike on the maternity hospital.
“A children’s hospital. A maternity hospital. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” Zelensky asked in his video address on Wednesday night.
Just to emphasize on the scale of horror, Zelensky switched to Russian. “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?” he remarked.
