A two-year-old child was pulled from the rubble of a building hit by a Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday but died in an ambulance, Ukrainian authorities said.
“The child died in the ambulance,” Daria Zarivna, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced on Telegram. This death brings the toll of this attack to six dead. The local governor had warned of the presence of people buried under the rubble. President Zelensky accused Russia of “brutally bombing” residential buildings and “killing people in broad daylight”.
“Anti-aircraft missiles” against “the civilian population”
In a statement, the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said that a preliminary investigation has been opened in criminal proceedings for violation of the laws and customs of war. “According to preliminary information, the occupiers used an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system against the civilian population,” the text adds.
AFP reporters on the spot saw rescue workers searching for survivors on the top floor of a Soviet-era residential building and black smoke billowing from burning houses across the street.
“Huge Explosion”
“I live across the street and was sleeping when I heard this huge explosion. I ran out of my apartment,” Larisa, a 59-year-old resident, told AFP. She said the impact of the shelling shattered her windows and sent shards of glass throughout the house.
At another bombed site, in a residential area, a shocked elderly woman was picking up shards of metal outside a store. A resident, who declined to reveal her identity, told AFP the blasts blew out her windows and knocked her front door out of its frame.
“Usually when this happens we immediately take refuge in the bathroom,” she said. “No one on our side of the building was hurt, but maybe someone here was,” she added, pointing to bloodstains near another entrance to her. building.