The mayor of Mariupol on Wednesday denounced the forced evacuation to Russia of a maternity hospital in this besieged city in the south-east of Ukraine where another maternity hospital had been bombed by the Russians on March 9.
“More than 70 people, women and medical personnel were forcibly taken away by the occupants of maternity hospital No. 2 in the left bank district,” the town hall said on Telegram.
In total, more than 20,000 residents of Mariupol were evacuated “against their will” to Russia, according to the municipality, which claims that the Russians confiscated their papers and redirected them “to distant Russian towns”.
This information is unverifiable from an independent source, Mariupol being besieged since the end of February with failing communications.
Another maternity and a pediatric hospital in Mariupol had been hit by a bombardment on March 9, arousing the indignation of the international community. At least three people including a child died in this strike.
The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov then justified the bombardment by assuring that the building of this maternity served, according to him, as a base for a Ukrainian nationalist battalion.
“This maternity ward has long since been taken over by the Azov battalion and other radicals, and all the women in childbirth, all the nurses and all the support staff have been thrown out,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his part declared on Tuesday that the Russian attacks on Mariupol were “a crime against humanity”.
The conditions for launching a humanitarian operation in the coming days to help the inhabitants of Mariupol “are not met at this stage”, the French presidency also announced on Tuesday evening after a meeting between French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The French head of state presented this evacuation operation – proposed at the end of last week by France, Turkey and Greece – to his Russian counterpart who said “he was going to think about it” before giving a response, added the French presidency.
Around 160,000 civilians are still stuck in Mariupol, shelled and in the throes of fierce fighting and facing “a humanitarian catastrophe”, living holed up in shelters without electricity and lacking food and water, according to testimonies collected by the AFP with people who fled Mariupol.