Theatre sheltering over 1,000 civillians bombed in Ukraine

Ukraine accused Russia Thursday of bombing a theatre that was sheltering more than 1,000 civilians in the city of Mariupol, .   

The latest assaults on civilians across Ukraine came as President Volodymyr Zelensky made a searing appeal for help to the US.   

Officials across Ukraine are struggling to count the civilian dead --with authorities saying 103 children have been killed since the invasion began-- who have been targeted in homes, hospitals, ambulances and food queues.   

In the port city of Mariupol -- where more than 2,000 people have died so far-- a Russian bomb hit the Drama Theatre, which city council officials said had been housing over 1,000 people. Satellite images of the theatre on March 14 shared by private satellite company Maxar showed the words “children” clearly etched out in the ground in Russian on either side of the building.   

Russia’s defence ministry denied it had targeted the theatre, instead claiming that the building had been mined and blown up by members of Ukraine’s far-right Azov Battalion. 

 
In a statement, Human Rights Watch said that while it couldn’t rule out the “possibility of a Ukrainian military target in the area of the theatre... we do know that the theatre had been housing at least 500 civilians.”   
KYIV, (AFP), 
March 17, 2022 -