Mariupol city searches for survivors amid theatre rubbles

Rescue workers were searching for survivors in the rubble of a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol, after Ukraine said a powerful Russian airstrike had hit the building where hundreds of people had been sheltering from the war.

The port city is encircled by Russian forces and has seen some of the fiercest bombardment of the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, after referring to the theatre attack.

An adviser to the city’s mayor, Petro Andrushchenko, said some people had survived the blast.

“The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of) victims yet,” he said.

He said rescue work was under way to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties, which was still unknown.

Russia denial

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a “lie”, and repeated Kremlin denials that Russian forces have targeted civilians since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia’s armed forces don’t bomb towns and cities,” she said.

Spokesperson of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Tetyana Ignatchenko, said there had been 1,000 people inside the Mariupol theatre a week ago.

“But after that, many people were able to escape. We can’t say exactly how many people were in the theatre. We can only assume 400-500. Half of them.”

Satellite images of the theatre taken earlier this week before it was struck show a large structure with a red roof and the Russian word for “children” painted in large white letters on the tarmac at the front and back.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, is expected to address the UN General Assembly made up of all member states.

This gesture was coming as the UN Security Council met on Thursday to address the escalating humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

The US, Britain, France, Ireland, Norway and Albania called for the meeting, following the increase in shelling on civilian areas in recent days.

Reuters