Russian attack on Ukrainian aid distribution point kills 7

Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko says Russian attack on school where humanitarian aid distributed a ‘war crime’.

A Russian attack on a humanitarian aid distribution point in southeastern Ukraine has killed seven people, Ukrainian officials said, while two people were also killed by Russian shelling in the east of the country.

Yuriy Malashko, governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, said a guided aviation bomb was used in Sunday’s attack on a school building being used to distribute humanitarian aid in the small town of Orikhiv.

Malashko called the attack a “war crime”.

“They hit a humanitarian aid delivery spot in a residential area,” Malashko said on social media. “Four people died on the spot: women aged 43, 45 and 47 and a 47-year-old man.”

The death toll has since increased, emergency services said.

“Rescuers removed the bodies of three people with no signs of life from under the rubble. The number of dead has risen to seven,” Ukraine’s emergency services wrote on Telegram later on Monday.

Rescue and recovery operations were now complete.

 

Malashko said 11 people wounded in the attack were being treated in hospital.

Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s office said the incident was being investigated as a war crime.

The prosecutor’s office also said that two people had been killed and three wounded on Monday in Russian shelling of the village of Hostre and the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region.

Orikhiv, with a pre-war population of around 14,000 people, is in the front line southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia where Ukrainian soldiers last month were pushing to recapture heavily fortified positions from Russian forces.