UKRAINIAN OFFICIALS SAY MARIUPOL ART SCHOOL USED AS SHELTER BOMBED BY RUSSIANS

Russian airstrikes previously targeted a drama theatre sheltering hundreds of residents in Mariupol MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES VIA AP

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Sun 20 March 2022:

Disclaimer: A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While Independent Press takes utmost care to accurately report this developing news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

Ukrainian authorities said the Russian military bombed an art school where about 400 people had taken refuge in the port city of Mariupol, where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said an unrelenting siege by Russian troops would go down in history for what he said were war crimes.

Local authorities said the school’s building was destroyed and people could remain under the rubble. There was no immediate word on casualties. Russian forces on Wednesday also bombed a theater in Mariupol where civilians were sheltering, authorities have said.

“To do this to a peaceful city, what the occupiers did, is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

Mariupol, a strategic port on the Azov Sea, has been under bombardment for at least three weeks and become a symbol of the horror of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Local authorities have said the siege has cut off food, water and energy supplies, and killed at least 2,300 people, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves.

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