The Russian army on Saturday bombed an art school that served as a shelter for hundreds of people in Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, local officials said on Sunday.
“Yesterday the Russian occupiers dropped bombs on the G12 art school, where 400 Mariupol residents, women, children and the elderly had taken refuge,” declared the port city’s mayor, one of the main targets of the Russian offensive at the moment. the building was destroyed and that peaceful people are under the rubble. We are looking for information on the number of victims.”
Mariupol has become strategic for Russian troops, who are trying to create a land bridge linking the Crimean peninsula, annexed by the Russians in 2014, to the Donbass region, where two self-proclaimed separatist republics are located (Lugansk and Donetsk, the province where Mariupol is located). ). Moscow is also seeking to cut off Ukrainian access to the Sea of ​​Azov, which bathes the region.
On Sunday, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko also accused Moscow of “forcibly deporting more than 1,000 Mariupol residents to the east of the city to Russia”, but did not specify when that had taken place. According to Kirilenko, Russian forces have set up “triage camps” in which they “check the phones” of residents before “confiscating their identity documents” before allegedly being taken to Russia. It is not possible to verify this information independently.
The intensification of the attacks on Mariupol has hampered search efforts in a theater in the city bombed on Wednesday (16). Authorities say hundreds of people were sheltered there. At least 130 were reportedly rescued on Friday, and about 1,300 were still inside the building, likely in an air raid shelter.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said the country plans to open 10 humanitarian corridors for civilian evacuation on Saturday. One of them would be precisely in Mariupol, although previous efforts have been frustrated as the temporary ceasefire, agreed in negotiations, was not respected.
