Russian Strikes Hit Red Cross Building In Mariupol: Ukraine

KYIV – Russian forces struck a Red Cross facility in the besieged and destroyed southern Ukraine port city of Mariupol, Kyiv said Wednesday, where officials have warned of an unfolding humanitarian disaster.
“In Mariupol, the occupiers aimed at the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross,” Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said in a statement on social media.
“Enemy aircraft and artillery fired on a building marked with a red cross on a white background, indicating the presence of wounded people or civilian or humanitarian cargo,” the statement said.
Denisova did not specify when the strikes had taken place and said there was no confirmation yet if anyone had been killed or injured in the attack. Russian forces have encircled the strategic southern city and their steady indiscriminate shelling has killed at least 5,000 people, officials say, estimating total deaths could be as many as 10,000.
Over four million Ukrainian
refugees have fled war: UN
More than four million Ukrainians have now fled the country to escape “senseless war”, the United Nations said Wednesday.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said 4,019,287 Ukrainians had fled across the country’s borders since the February 24 invasion, with more than 2.3 million having headed west into Poland.
“Refugees from Ukraine are now four million, five weeks after the start of the Russian attack,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on Twitter.
“I have just arrived in Ukraine. In Lviv I will discuss with the authorities, the UN and other partners ways to increase our support to people affected and displaced by this senseless war.” The number of refugees has surpassed UNHCR’s initial estimate that the war could create up to four million.