A building of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was targeted by Russian bombardment in Mariupol, a besieged strategic port city in southeastern Ukraine, a Ukrainian official said on Wednesday.
(Read: Moscow limits its military objectives and kyiv considers a counteroffensive)
“The occupants deliberately bombed an ICRC building in Mariupol,” Liudmila Denisova wrote on Telegram, responsible for human rights in the Ukrainian Parliament.
(You are interested in: How I survived the 500kg bomb attack on the Mariupol theater)
“At the moment, we have no information on casualties,” he added, without specifying how many people might have been in the building at the time of the bombing.
Russian forces continue the siege of Mariupol with constant and indiscriminate shelling that has left at least 5,000 people, according to the authorities, who estimate that the total dead could rise to 10,000.
Aid organizations have repeatedly asked for access to Mariupol, where living conditions are very difficult, and Ukrainian officials accuse Russian troops of forcibly deporting residents to Russia.
Victims of disinformation
The Red Cross claimed on Tuesday that it is the subject of mass disinformation about its work in Ukraine. and denounces the risks that this causes to its personnel.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is facing accusations over its efforts to facilitate evacuations from besieged cities in Ukraine, as well as its neutral communication with the two parties to the conflict.
“We are witnessing deliberate and targeted attacks, using false stories or disseminating such information to discredit the ICRC,” Ewan Watson, a spokesman for the organization, told reporters in Geneva.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, there has been “a huge flow of disinformation and fake news that we perceive as deliberate, targeted and orchestrated through social networks (…) and that appear at times in the big media,” he said.
The humanitarian crisis worsens in Ukraine […] The high level of death, suffering and disruption that we see imposed on civilians is abhorrent and unacceptable
“This can potentially cause real damage to our teams … on the ground and to the people we serve.”
One of the accusations against the ICRC circulating on social media ensures that aided the forced evacuations of Ukrainians to Russia from the besieged city of Mariupol.
The ICRC “will never support any operation that is not done in accordance with the will of the people and our principles,” Watson insisted. He also described as “absolutely false” an accusation that circulates according to which the organization is establishing an office in Rostov, in the south of Russia, to “filter Ukrainians”.
The ICRC has discussed opening an office in Rostov but stressing that this is part of a regional effort to respond to a massive humanitarian crisis.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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