Investigation finds at least 34 Russian attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities

26 March 2022, 1:27 am

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A medical worker walks through the damaged maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. A Russian attack has severely damaged the hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

The Associated Press has independently documented at least 34 assaults on Ukrainian medical facilities by Russian forces.

AP journalists in Ukraine have seen firsthand the deadly results of Russian strikes on civilian targets, including the final moments of children whose bodies were shredded by shrapnel and dozens of corpses heaped into mass graves.

AP journalists outside Ukraine have confirmed the details of other attacks by interviewing survivors and independently verifying war zone videos and photos posted online.

The accounting is part of the War Crimes Watch Ukraine project, a broader effort by AP and PBS “Frontline” to track evidence of potential war crimes for the duration of the conflict.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights confirms at least 1,035 civilians, including 90 children, have died and another 1,650 civilians have been wounded since the war started a month ago.

Those numbers are certainly an undercount since scores of bodies now lie under the rubble of demolished buildings or were hurriedly buried in mass graves, or the deaths occurred in areas now under Russian control.