Russian troops again bomb places where Mariupol citizens were sheltering: people are under the rubble
Iryna Balachuk – Sunday, 20 March 2022, 09:10
On 19 March Russian aggressors dropped bombs on School of Art №12 in Mariupol where citizens were sheltering. The building is ruined, people are still under the rubble.
Source: Mariupol City Council on Telegram
Quote: "Yesterday (19 March – ed.) the Russian occupiers dropped bombs on the School of Art №12 located in the Livoberezhnyi district of Mariupol. Around 400 citizens (women, children, and elderly) were sheltering there."
Details: The building of the school is ruined; there are still civilians under the rubble. Information about victims is still being clarified.
According to Mariupol City Council, the occupants continue to pursue a policy of genocide of the Ukrainian people and the civilians of Mariupol.
Background:
- Russian aircraft dropped a bomb on the Mariupol Drama Theater in the city centre in the afternoon of March 16. This was a shelter for around a thousand citizens who have lost their homes in the war. The Russian Ministry of Defence denies the involvement of Russian aircraft, and claims that the airstrike was carried out by the "Azov" Battalion, [a neo-Nazi, formerly paramilitary unit of the National Guard of Ukraine /ed.].
- Maxar Technologies, a private U.S. company, has distributed satellite imagery that showed the word "children" in large Russian script painted on the ground outside the Mariupol Drama Theatre. The pilots would definitely have been able to see the word before deciding to drop the bomb.
- At night on 19 March, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 130 people had been saved.
- Mariupol City Council says that Russian occupying forces drop 50 to 100 air bombs on Mariupol every day. Mariupol has been 80-90-per-cent destroyed by the aggressors.
- Previously, journalists published a horrifying video taken from a drone that shows the scale of destruction of the residential areas of the city.
