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At least 71 children died in Ukraine since the start of the Russian offensive on February 24, Liudmyla Denisova, head of human rights in the Ukrainian Parliament, announced on Thursday.
“From the start of the Russian invasion to March 10 at 11:00 a.m. (09:00 GMT) included, 71 children were killed and more than 100 wounded,” he said in a statement on Telegram.
The International Criminal Court will investigate “war crimes” in Ukraine
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was already able to confirm 18 attacks on Ukrainian medical facilitieswith 10 dead and 16 wounded, although it was not clear if it included the victims of the bombing of the hospital in Mariupol, a city of 430,000 inhabitants that has been under siege by Russian forces since last week.
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On Wednesday, the bombing of a medical center that housed a maternity and a children’s hospital in Mariúpol (southeast) left three dead, one of them a girl, according to municipal sources. In Malyn in the west, five people were killed, three of them children, when seven houses were shelled, Denisova said, citing several examples of Russian attacks in which children were killed.
Two more hospitals were attacked in Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 west of Kiev, one of them also a pediatric hospital, Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn said on Facebook. The official said there were no injuries.
Zelensky referred to the attack on the children’s hospital
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday described “war crime” the Russian air attack against a mother and child hospital in the city of Mariupol, in the southeast of the country, after the international condemnation.
The airstrike on the hospital, which authorities said housed maternity and pediatric units, blew out windows, tore down partitions and set fire to cars parked outside, videos released by authorities showed.
Zelensky accused Russia of bombing a maternity hospital in Ukraine
“We have never done nor would we ever do anything like this. war crime in any of the cities of the Donetsk or Lugansk regions, or any region… because we are people. But are you?” Zelensky asked, switching to Russian to make his point clear.
“What kind of country is Russia, which is afraid of hospitals and maternity hospitals and destroys them?” he declared.