Bombing on school with numerous deaths: Russia act causes "horror"

Created: 05/09/2022Updated: 05/09/2022 05:09

By: Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld

A bomb is said to have hit a school during the Ukraine war.

Many people had sought shelter there.

Observers speak of up to 60 dead.

Luhansk – A Russian bomb is said to have hit a school in the Luhansk region of Ukraine on Saturday, May 7.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed the deaths of 60 civilians, the AFP news agency reports.

According to the information, 90 people had sought protection in the school building in eastern Ukraine.

Shortly before the "Victory Day" celebrated in Russia on May 9, Moscow intensified its efforts to gain territory in the Ukraine war.

A fire broke out in the school in Bilohorivka as a result of the bombing and the building collapsed.

Bilohorivka is an urban settlement about ten kilometers west of Lysychansk.

The town is heavily contested.

The emergency services were able to save 30 people - seven of them were injured, said the governor of the region Serhij Hajdaj on his Telegram channel on Sunday.

On Sunday morning he initially spoke of two bodies that had been recovered.

Ukraine-News: Bombing of school: numerous dead – Russia intensified war operations shortly before May 9th

"Probably all 60 people who are still under the rubble of the building are dead," Hajdaj added a little later.

Now there is certainty.

According to him, the air raid happened on Saturday afternoon.

Survivors of the bomb attack described their experiences to the US broadcaster CNN.

One man described the following: "I was struck down by a plate - bent into a ball".

And added: "Then another explosion, small stones fell on us.

Darkness.” A woman was in the room who was screaming the whole time.

There are hardly any photos of the attack on the school in Bilohorivka.

Archive image: Ukrainian soldiers collect several Russian Uragan rockets after fighting in the village of Berezivka.

© Efrem Lukatsky/dpa

Another man described hiding in the basement of the building - all three floors collapsed in the attack.

Another told CNN of his escape: "I was the very first to start climbing out," he said.

“I raked bricks and threw them away.

There were wooden boards and boards.

Locals who were not in the basement helped and used a pipe to tear off these boards.” Among the people who had taken shelter in the school were several elderly people.

"Imagine what they bombed," said one survivor of the attack as the Ukraine conflict escalated.

"An ordinary village with only pensioners and children."

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss expressed her shock at the Russian attack on the school in Luhansk Oblast.

Truss wrote on Twitter that she was "appalled" by the attack.

The intentional shelling of civilians and civilian infrastructure is tantamount to "war crimes".

"We will ensure that Putin's regime is held accountable," Truss said.

(aka with dpa)