Newborn killed in Russian strike on Ukraine maternity ward: rescuers

(FILES) EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / General view of a psychiatric hospital destroyed by a missile in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, on September 7, 2022, as the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 196th day. (Photo by Juan BARRETO / AFP)

KYIVUkraine (AFP) – A newborn baby was killed following a Russian strike that hit a maternity ward in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims to have annexed, Ukrainian emergency services said Wednesday.

Overnight on Tuesday to Wednesday, “in the city of Vilniansk in Zaporizhzhia region, as a result of a rocket attack on the territory of the local hospital, the two-storey building of the maternity ward was destroyed,” rescuers said on social media.

They added that there was “a woman in labor with a newborn baby as well as a doctor” inside the building.

“As a result of the attack, a baby born in 2022 died, the woman and doctor were rescued from the rubble,” rescuers said, adding that according to preliminary information there was nobody else trapped under the debris.

The emergency services distributed a video of rescuers working to free a man trapped waist-deep in the rubble of what appears to be the destroyed maternity ward.