Bombing Red Cross Casts Shadow Over Peace Talks

Russia has been accused of shelling a Red Cross facility in the stricken city of Mariupol, as the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine worsened yesterday, and hopes that a political settlement could end the five-week long war were called into question.

- David Harding Tom Batchelor

Lyudmila Denisova, who is responsible for monitoring human rights abuses for the Ukraine parliament, said a warehouse had been struck by Russian forces. “In Mariupol, the occupiers aimed at the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross,” she said.

An International Red Cross spokesperson said an image circulating on social media did show one of their warehouses in Mariupol but could not provide more information. The claims came as grim humanitarian milestones were reached in the war.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced that the number of Ukrainians who had fled their country had tipped over the 4 million mark, and Unicef said that figure included 2 million children for the first time.

With a population of about 44 million, this means that nearly a tenth of the Ukrainian population has left the country in five weeks. Some 2.3 million have sought sanctuary in neighbouring Poland, and more than 600,000 are in Romania, data provided by UNHCR showed.

Moldova and Hungary have accepted 387,000 and 364,000 people respectively, while Slovakia has welcomed 281,000. The UN said that more than 1,100 civilians have died in the conflict. The organisation’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet said: “Civilians are enduring immeasurable suffering, and the humanitarian crisis is critical.”

Meanwhile, Ms Denisova, who was speaking in Brussels, also claimed that 400,000 Ukrainians have now been forcibly displaced to Russia since the start of the war on 24 February.