Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, is located in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast and has been under direct Russian control since May 2022.
Russian attacks on Mariupol began on February 24, 2022 – the first day of the invasion. The city was subjected to some of the war’s worst atrocities.
In March, an airstrike ripped through a maternity and children’s hospital in the city. Russian officials claimed the hospital was a justifiable military target, based on their unproven assertion that Ukrainian military targets were on site and that all patients and medical staff had left.
But footage circulating on social media showed expectant mothers being escorted out of a ruined building amid charred cars and debris.
Among the injured was a pregnant woman who was photographed being carried out on a stretcher. Neither she nor her baby could be saved, a surgeon who treated her later confirmed. The photo…
