According to UNICEF, approximately 2.3 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, including 1 million children. Around 1.5 million of these refugees have fled to Poland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“More than 1 million children have now fled Ukraine as war continues to ravage the country,” UNICEF said in a press release. “Most have fled with their families to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania.”
“The number of children on the move is staggering, an indication of how desperate the situation for children and families in Ukraine has become,” said UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia Afshan Khan. “Children are leaving everything they know behind in search of safety. This is heart-breaking.”
Children are routinely coming under threat as Russia’s military tactics escalate. According to Mariupol city council, three people died after a Russian bomb attack on a maternity hospital.
“As of today, we know that after the terrorist bombing by Russian aircraft of the children’s hospital in Mariupol there are 17 victims — children, women, doctors — and three died, among them one child, a girl,” the council said.
Russia has denied that it bombed the children’s hospital in southern Ukraine, calling it “fake news.”
“That’s how [fake news] is born,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, tweeted. “We warned in our statement back on 7 March … that this hospital has been turned into a military object by radicals. Very disturbing that UN spreads this information without verification.”
This was in response to a tweet by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
“Today’s attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children’s wards are located, is horrific. Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them,” Guterres wrote. “This senseless violence must stop. End the bloodshed now.”
Today's attack on a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, where maternity & children's wards are located, is horrific.
Civilians are paying the highest price for a war that has nothing to do with them.
This senseless violence must stop.
End the bloodshed now.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 9, 2022
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the attack had taken place, describing it as an “atrocity.”
“Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity,” he tweeted.
Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity. pic.twitter.com/FoaNdbKH5k
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 9, 2022
“An aerial bomb on a maternity hospital is the conclusive evidence that what is happening is a genocide of Ukrainians,” he added in a video address.
“Footage has emerged of badly wounded patients and nurses being evacuated from decimated buildings, while pregnant women were carried out on stretchers into a courtyard covered in rubble and littered with huge craters,” The Daily Mail reported, adding, “Video footage from the aftermath of the attack showed that large parts of the hospital had completely collapsed, while blood soaked mattresses were pictured lying in hallways.”
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
