Outcry as horrors of strike on children’s hospital emerge
RESCUE operations stretched into a second day at a Kyiv children’s hospital which was struck by a Russian missile as Ukrainian officials raised the countrywide death toll to 42 after the intense daytime attack on multiple cities.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the social platform X that 64 people were taken to hospital in the capital as well as 28 in Kryvyi Rih and six in Dnipro – both in central Ukraine.
It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest of the war, hitting seven of the city’s 10 districts.
The strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, which interrupted open-heart surgery and forced young cancer patients to have their treatments outdoors, has drawn an international outcry.
The 10-storey hospital, which is Ukraine’s largest medical facility for children, was caring for 670 patients at the time of the attack, Okhmatdyt’s director general Volodymyr Zhovnir said yesterday.
The missile hit a two-storey wing of the hospital.
“The building where we conducted dialysis for children with kidney failure or acute intoxication is ruined entirely,” he told reporters, estimating the overall damage to the hospital at $2.5 million.
Danielle Bell, the head of a UN team tracking human rights violations in Ukraine, said at least two people were killed at the hospital and some 50 people were injured, including seven children.
The casualty figure would have been much higher if patients had not been taken to a bunker when air raid sirens first sounded, she added.
Authorities were working to restore the hospital’s power and water supply.
It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest of the war, hitting seven of the city’s 10 districts.
Kyiv city administrators declared yesterday an official day of mourning.
Entertainment events were prohibited and flags lowered in the capital.
Russia denied responsibility for the hospital strike, insisting it does not attack civilian targets in Ukraine despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday repeated that position, pointing to a Russian Defence Ministry statement that blamed a Ukrainian air defence missile for partially destroying the hospital.
The Russian onslaught came on the eve of a Nato summit in Washington where alliance countries are expected to pledge new military and economic support for Ukraine.
Mr Zelenskyy said on social media: “It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing.”
In a statement, US President Joe Biden called the missile strikes “a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”.
“It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression,” the statement said.
Western leaders who have backed Ukraine in the war are holding a threeday Nato summit in Washington.
They will look at how they can reassure Ukraine of the alliance’s unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can come through Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War.
At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers are searching for people under the rubble of a partially collapsed, two-storey wing of the facility.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 16 people, seven of them children, were injured. On the hospital’s main 10-storey building, windows and doors were blown out and walls were blackened. Blood spattered the floor in one room. The intensive care unit, operating theatres and oncology departments were all damaged, officials said.
Medical personnel and local people searched for children and medical workers. Volunteers formed a line, passing bricks and other debris to each other.
The attack forced the hospital to shut down and evacuate. Some mothers carried their children away on their backs. Others waited in the courtyard with their children as calls to doctors’ phones rang unanswered.
A few hours after the initial strike, another air raid siren sent many mothers with their children hurrying to the hospital’s shelter.
Led by torchlight through the shelter’s dark corridors, mothers carried their bandaged children in their arms and medics carried them on trolleys.
Volunteers handed out sweets in an effort to calm the children.
Russia’s defence ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian defence plants and military air bases and were successful. It repeated denials it had aimed at any civilian facilities and claimed without offering evidence that pictures from Kyiv indicated the damage was caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing