A maternity hospital in the south-east of Ukraine was hit by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday, wounding at least 17 people.
The building, situated in the port city of Mariupol, 829 km from the capital Kyiv, was struck by a series of blasts which shattered windows and destroyed the exterior of the building, according to AP news agency.
Local police and soldiers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying out wounded pregnant women on stretchers.
Mariupol’s City Council said the bombing caused “colossal” damage. Volodymir Nikulin, a regional police official, told AP news “Russia committed a huge crime. It is a war crime without any justification.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to Twitter to announce the blasts as “an atrocity.”
“Children are under the wreckage. This is an atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice by ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity,” Zelenskiy wrote, calling on NATO to establish a no-fly zone over his country.
Zelenskyy also shared a footage on his feed that showed the destructive aftermath of the blasts.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, “There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenseless.”
“The UK is exploring more support for Ukraine to defend against airstrikes and we will hold Putin to account for his terrible crimes.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, vulnerable and pregnant women have been seeking shelter in the basement of maternity hospitals, as rockets continue to drop bombs across the country.
In the northwestern city of Zhytomyr, a Russian airstrike destroyed a maternity ward on March 2, though no casualties were recorded.
In Vasylivka, in the south of the country, Ukrainian forces are fighting against rapidly advancing Russian troops. Between March 1 -2, Russian forces attacked Vasylivka Multidisciplinary Intensive Care Hospital — four people were seriously injured, three died from their wounds, according to the Zaporizhia Regional Ministry Administration.
Former Ukrainian parliamentarian Anna Hopko is calling for the Red Cross and other relief agencies to provide support.
“The world must know that Ukrainian women are giving birth while under attack, we are calling for them to be evacuated,” she told DW. “We need a no-fly-zone over Ukraine.”
According to DW, some women were being forced to undergo a C-section in the storage basement of hospitals.
Elsewhere around the country, newborn babies in incubators were being put in hospital corridors to shield them from Russian shelling.
Yuriy Herman, an obstetrician and gynaecologist working in the southern city of Kherson told DW that the cold basements were suitable for waiting out arial attacks.
“They are used by pregnant women and mothers with their babies to stay out of harm’s way; giving birth is anything but safe under such conditions,” he said.
Herman expressed concerns over women living outside of the occupied city.
“They don’t have the kind of maternity wards we have, many women who want to come to Kherson cannot; pregnant women expecting complications usually came to our ward.”