KYIV | About 300 dead are feared in the theater of Mariupol bombarded by the Russian air force on March 16 while hundreds of people were sheltered there, announced Friday the town hall of the city, citing witnesses.
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“Witnesses have information that about 300 people died in the Mariupol Drama Theater as a result of a bombing by a Russian plane. Until the end, we do not want to believe in this horror. Until the end, we want to believe that everyone is safe. But the testimonies of those who were inside the building at the time of this terrorist act say the opposite”, writes the town hall on its Telegram account.
Reached by AFP, Petro Andriouchchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol declined to comment immediately, adding that there would be “probably more information by this evening”.
The theatre, located in central Mariupol, was badly damaged by an airstrike on March 16.
The entrance to the shelter where there were hundreds of people “mainly women, children and the elderly”, according to the town hall, was blocked by debris and complicated rescue operations against a backdrop of incessant bombing.
Ukrainian human rights envoy Lyoudmyla Denisova said on March 17 that the shelter in the theater had withstood the bombardment.
A week ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 130 people had been rescued from the building, but “hundreds” more remained under the rubble.
The American space technology company Maxar Technologies, which specializes in satellite imagery, published a photo of the Mariupol Drama Theater taken two days earlier on March 16, according to it. According to the photo seen by AFP, the word “children” was written on the ground, in huge white letters and in Russian, in front and behind the building.
More than 2,000 civilians were killed in Mariupol, according to a latest report communicated by the town hall. According to President Zelensky, some 100,000 people are still stranded in this besieged strategic port in the Sea of Azov.