The death toll after the Russian glide-bomb attack on a school in Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region has risen to 24. According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the dead include two rescue workers and four police officers, Ukrinform reported on Monday, citing the service’s main directorate in the Zaporizhzhia region. Five other people were injured, including two rescue workers.
The head of the emergency service, Andrii Danyk, said: “Today the Zaporizhzhia district experienced a terrible tragedy. We have lost two of our colleagues, two more are injured and in hospital.” After the first strike, the emergency crews had to move to a shelter because of a threatened second attack, Danyk continued. “But the enemy struck again at the site of the previous hit.” The gymnasium and the household building were destroyed, and a fire engine was wiped out.
The regional military administrator, Mykhailo Semikin, said on Telegram that 27 people were considered missing, the Spiegel reported. The authorities had previously reported 18 deaths. The Guardian, citing the Ukrainian president and the emergency service, reported at least 26 dead; the figures from the sources therefore differ.
Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of a deliberate bombardment of a humanitarian aid distribution point. “Russia could not have failed to notice that the residents remaining in Komyshuvakha receive humanitarian aid there every week,” he wrote on Telegram, according to the Spiegel. In his evening video address, he said the Russians had struck first just as people were arriving, and then there was a second attack on the shelter. Later he described the attack as a “treacherous terrorist attack”. There was initially no statement from the Russian side.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, Russia used more than ten glide bombs. One of them, according to Zelensky, hit an air-raid shelter directly. Komyshuvakha is located about 25 kilometres east of the city of Zaporizhzhia and a good dozen kilometres from the front line. The rescue work on Monday evening was hampered, according to Semikin, by further Russian drone attacks in the affected area.
Earlier coverage: Russian air strike on Komyshuvakha kills at least 18
