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Ukraine said Wednesday that 37 people had been killed in a Russian strike earlier this week on an aid centre in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, according to Anadolu Agency.
Search and rescue efforts were continuing for a third consecutive day in Komyshuvakha, where the attack took place on Monday, the regional directorate of Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement on Telegram.
The police said the bodies of 37 people had been recovered from the rubble and 12 had so far been identified. A further 59 people were considered missing, with some potentially among those already recovered.
As many as 38 people could still be trapped under the debris, the statement said. Some recovered bodies could not be identified visually, so specialists were collecting biological samples to create DNA profiles for comparison.
Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, also confirmed that rescue work was continuing. Canine units and workers from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service were at the scene, he said.
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian aerial bombs had struck a school in Komyshuvakha that was being used to distribute humanitarian aid.
He said that after the first bomb hit, nine more bombs struck in a double-tap attack, targeting a shelter where people had taken cover. In a post on “X”, Zelenskyy accused Moscow of not seeking to de-escalate the four-year war in Ukraine.
Russian authorities have not commented on the attack in Komyshuvakha.
The strike came a day after a six-day US-brokered ceasefire in Oleshky, a city under Russian control in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, expired at 21:00 GMT on Sunday.
