A Ukrainian official on Friday. March 18, said rescuers had pulled 130 survivors out of the wreckage of a theater sheltering refugees when the Russian Federation (RF) air force dropped a bomb on it, but hundreds more might still be trapped in the rubble with no escape.
Serhy Taruta, head of the Donetsk Regional Administration, said emergency response crews were unable to reach survivors from the Wednesday afternoon air strike.
Taruta on Friday said: “How many people are still under the ruins (of the theater), how many injured and how many dead, nobody knows. The one thing that is clear is that people trapped inside have no way to get out. Nobody is able to dig (people) out of crushed buildings. (Mariupols city) emergency services, which are responsible for such work, have been physically destroyed by (RF) forces. Many medics have been killed. This means that anyone who survived after the bombing is either going to die, or is already dead.”
On Thursday. March 17, Taruta said early indications were practically all people hiding in the building likely survived, because they were able to take cover in air raid shelters.
The roof of the building was, according to widely-shared social media photographs and Ukrainian official statements, marked with the word “Children” in large white letters. An RF bomber nevertheless hit Mariupol’s Opera Theater, in broad daylight, with a reported 500 kg bomb, collapsing the building.
Mariupol has been cut off by RF troops since the early days of the war. House to house battles continue, and defending units have repeatedly claimed they are getting the better of the fighting and that they intend to hold their positions.
RF forces have bombarded Mariupol more than two weeks, and, aside from small refugee convoys, RF troops block all movement into and out of Mariupol.
According to city officials, at least 2,500 civilians have died under the RF land and air bombardments, and from being caught in the crossfires of urban fighting. Around 300,000 people still in the city face starvation, a recent Red Cross statement said.
Ukrainian government officials have repeatedly called on NATO to intervene in Mariupol and elsewhere to create safe zones, and to head off humanitarian disaster and prevent mass death. Brussels has demurred on grounds that might anger the Kremlin.
