10 killed in Russian strikes on hospital in Ukraine’s Sumy
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Ukrainian medics and law enforcement officers providing assistance to a police officer, following a drone attack in Sumy, on Sept 28.
PHOTO: AFP
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KYIV - Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Moscow for “waging war on hospitals” after Russian strikes on a hospital in the border city of Sumy killed 10 people on Sept 28.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram that the first strike “killed one person” and damaged several floors of the hospital.
“During the evacuation of patients, the enemy struck again,” he added.
Sumy lies just across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise offensive
“Russia hit one of the city’s hospitals with Shahed drones,” Mr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
The attack hit the St Panteleimon Clinical Hospital near the city centre, officials said, with a nurse among the dead.
The attack comes as Mr Zelensky is pressing Kyiv’s Western allies to allow the use of long-range precision weapons to strike deep inside Russia.
“Everyone in the world who speaks about this war must pay attention to what Russia is targeting. They are waging war on hospitals, civilian facilities and people’s lives,” the president said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the attack was “more evidence of Russia’s war crimes”.
Mr Zelensky posted photos of smoke pouring from windows above the destroyed entrance to the hospital, rescuers carrying patients down the stairs and treating two policemen lying on the ground.
On Sept 28 morning, three drones attacked the regional capital city and two hit the hospital, Ukraine’s air force said.
A first strike was followed by another around an hour later on Sept 28 morning, officials said, apparently targeting the rescue operation to maximise casualties.
‘Lying on the street dead’
Russia has destroyed or damaged at least 1,736 medical facilities in Ukraine since its February 2022 invasion, Human Rights Watch reported in July.
These have included a children’s hospital in Kyiv a maternity hospital in Mariupol
Regional prosecutors said the first attack took place at around 7.35am (12.35pm in Singapore) and the second about an hour later.
Images posted by officials showed body bags lying on the pavement outside the four-storey building with a destroyed entrance and the roof partially ripped off.
The hospital’s director, Mr Volodymyr Potseluyev, told Suspilne media outlet that the hospital’s admission department, casualty department and fourth floor were destroyed.
He said seriously injured patients had been transferred to intensive care units at other hospitals.
Regional authorities said the strikes also hit a residential area and posted images of flats with broken windows.
Dobrobat, a volunteer group that helps repair damaged homes, wrote on Facebook that its volunteers were working at the scene when the second strike came.
It posted a video showing thick smoke, explosions and people rushing to take shelter as sirens wailed.
“People are just lying on the street dead,” a volunteer said, filming himself on his phone.
Rescues working at a hospital hit by a Russian drone in Sumy, Ukraine, on Sept 28.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Ukraine’s air force reported shooting down 68 Russian attack drones out of 73 in multiple regions overnight, including Sumy, and two out of four cruise missiles launched overnight by Russia.
In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, rescuers pulled another body from the rubble of a police office building struck by a missile on Sept 27, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said, taking the toll to four.
A drone strike in a border village in the eastern Kharkiv region killed one man and wounding three women, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
In Russia’s Belgorod border region, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a local resident was killed Sept 28 morning by a drone attack.
Closing his visit to the United States, Mr Zelensky released a statement later on Sept 28 thanking US President Joe Biden for the latest military aid package
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned European countries against seeking confrontation with Moscow in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, calling it a “suicidal escapade.”
“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power,” he said. AFP
