Ukraine says Russia bombed school sheltering 400 people in Mariupol

By Team Newsable | First Published Mar 20, 2022, 5:48 PM IST

Mariupol has been a major target of Moscow's strikes. For days, Russian bombardment has pounded the eastern Ukrainian port, causing a near complete communication blackout.

Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces on Sunday of bombing a school in the besieged city of Mariupol, where 400 people, including women and children, had sought refuge, and of deporting some inhabitants to Russia. Mariupol has been a major target of Moscow's strikes. For days, Russian bombardment has pounded the eastern Ukrainian port, causing a near complete communication blackout.

"The Russian occupiers dropped bombs on an art school No. 12 yesterday," the municipal council announced on the messaging app Telegram on Sunday, adding that 400 women, children, and the elderly had sought refuge there from the bombardments. The council announced in a statement that the structure, which is located in the city's east, had been demolished. "Peaceful citizens are still under the debris," the statement continued.

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City authorities further alleged that certain Mariupol citizens were being deported to Russia and deprived of their Ukrainian passports. "People who are forcefully deported to Russia are removed of their Ukrainian passports and handed a piece of paper that has no legal weight and is not recognised by the whole civilised world," the local council said.

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Meanwhile, Russia announced on Sunday that it launched its latest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles into Ukraine, damaging a gasoline storage facility in the country's south. The Russian defence ministry reportedly claimed to have killed more than 100 Ukrainian special forces personnel and "foreign mercenaries." "when it used sea-based missiles to attack a training centre in the northern Ukrainian town of Ovruch.

"Kinzhal aircraft missile systems with hypersonic ballistic missiles damaged a big gasoline and lubricant storage complex of the Ukrainian armed forces near Kostyantynivka in the Mykolaiv area," according to the defence ministry.

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