Russia attacked a hospital in Sumy in northeastern Ukraine early on Saturday, killing 10 people and injuring at least 22 others, Ukrainian officials said.
Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said “loitering munitions” – or suicide drones – hit the Saint Panteleimon Clinical Hospital in two attacks 45 minutes apart.
“Most of the fatalities occurred during the second strike, which hit as first responders arrived at the site and patients attempted to evacuate,” she said.
Sumy’s regional administration said late on Saturday that 10 people had been killed and 22 injured, including 15 who were in hospital, five of them in serious condition. All the hospital’s patients were evacuated to other facilities, it added.
Sumy City Council said on its website that nine high-rise buildings were damaged in addition to the hospital.
Bell said she had been in Sumy last week following up on a deadly Sept. 19 attack on a geriatric centre in which at least one civilian had been killed and 13 injured, and recalled an Aug. 13 attack on another hospital complex in the city.
“Medical facilities are protected under international humanitarian law and are entitled to special protection. They must not be the object of attack,” she said, adding that 33 civilians had been killed and 132 injured in Sumy city and the surrounding region since Aug. 6.
Ukrainian prosecutors said that at the time of the Saturday morning attacks 86 patients and 38 staff members were in the hospital.
Source: Reuters
