Russian Air Force Dropped 1 Ton Bomb on a Women and Children's Hospital in Mariupol; 17 Wounded

Ukraine pres. Volodomyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of carrying out "genocide" after Ukrainian officials said Russian aircraft bombed a children's hospital on Wednesday, burying patients in rubble despite a ceasefire deal for people to flee Mariupol.

At least three people, including a child, were killed and 17 more were injured in the maternity hospital in Mariupol, city officials said Thursday, as foreign ministers from the two countries arrived in Turkey for their first high-level talks since the invasion.

"What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?" Zelenskiy said in a televised address late on Wednesday.

Russia called the bombing "fake news," adding that the maternity hospital had long ago been taken over as a military barracks. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-claim-that-it-bombed-childrens-hospital-are-fake-news-2022-03-10/

Elsewhere in Mariupol, residents are out of food, water, and have not had electricity for days. Thousands of them will die if there is not some sort of intervention, as the Russians seemingly are unconcerned with civilian casualties.

Mariupol is a coastal town of 400,000 on the Sea of Azov. Between Crimea and Russia along Ukraine's southern coast, the town has been the object of intensive Russian fire. No less than 4 times, the Russian diplomats have agreed to a ceasefire, then fired on civilians who try to evacuate.

Elsewhere in Mariupol, "there are just bodies lying in the streets." Inside Mariupol, Ukraine, as Russian forces pound it with bombs, missiles and artillery.

"Over the last 100 hours or so," tweets Illia Ponomarenko, a journalist embedded with Ukraine troops, "Russia has seriously reduced engaging Ukrainian military targets. Most of its attacks, primarily in terms of air strikes, are being clearly delivered against civilian population and infrastructure. Russians are not even trying to justify anything."

“An apparent Russian strike on Wednesday damaged and destroyed buildings at a hospital complex in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, including a maternity ward, according to several videos verified by The New York Times,” The New York Times reported, adding, “The city is part of a vital stretch of terrain that Russia is trying to capture in an apparent attempt to link Russian-backed separatist enclaves in the southeast with Crimea, the southern peninsula Russia seized in 2014.”