Russia attacks Ukraine: Mariupol theater used as shelter bombed

Update 6:16 A.M. EDT March 17, 2022: There are unconfirmed reports that the refugee shelter in the Drama Theater in Mariupol remained intact after yesterday’s bombing by Russian forces and that people are now in the process of being evacuated. The amount of survivors is unknown at this time.

Ukrainian military forces are working to confirm these initial reports.

Read the original report below.

A theater that had been serving as a shelter for refugees in Mariupol has been bombed.

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The theater was heavily damaged in the attack, CNN reported.

Images of the building were shared on social media by the Mariupol City Council and geolocated by CNN.

The city council said Russia “purposefully and cynically destroyed the Drama Theater in the heart of Mariupol. The plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding.”

The number of people hurt or killed has not been released, Reuters reported.

CNN reported that at one point 1,000 people were hiding in the theater and several hundred were estimated to have been inside during the attack. But officials can’t get into the theater as the entrance of the bomb shelter is blocked by rubble.

Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, said the theater was the largest shelter in both size and capacity in Mariupol, CNN reported.

Pavlo Kyrylenkiok, head of the Donetsk regional administration that oversees Mariupol, said the Neptune swimming pool was also targeted by Russia as it tries to “physically destroy Mariupol and the people of Mariupol, which have been a symbol of our resistance,” CNN reported.

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