Ukraine Invasion: 300 Feared Dead In Russian Attack On Mariupol Theatre

Pic courtesy Maxar Technologies

Mariupol: Among Russia’s most mindless attacks during their ongoing one-month-long invasion of Ukraine was an airstrike on a theatre in Mariupol last week.

According to Mariupol’s city council, about 300 are likely to have lost their lives when Russian aircraft targeted the theatre on March 16.

“Unfortunately, we start the day with bad news,” Mariupol city council said on its Telegram channel on Friday. “There is information, based on eyewitnesses, that about 300 people died in the Drama Theater in Mariupol as a result of a bombing by Russian aircraft.”

The authorities added: “We still do not want to believe in this horror. We still want to believe that everyone managed to escape. But the words of those who were inside the building at the time of this terrorist act say otherwise.”

The theatre building was being used as one of the major shelters in the port city in south-eastern Ukraine, which is one of the worst-hit by Vladimir Putin’s forces since the military operation started on February 24.

Estimates of the number of people who had taken shelter in the theatre ranged from 800 to 1,300, CNN reported.

Aerial pictures showed ‘children’ painted in large letters on the ground outside the front and back of the building before the Russians struck.

“The occupier knew where he was hitting. He knew what the consequences might be, and anyway the bombs fell on this place,” the city council’s statement further mentioned.

There have been attacks on a maternity hospital and a school building in Mariupol as well.