KYIV: Dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war appear to have been killed in an missile strike on Friday, with Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of carrying out the attack.
The incident overshadowed UN-backed efforts to restart grain shipments from Ukraine and ease a looming global hunger crisis stemming from the war, now in its sixth month.
Russia’s defense ministry said 40 prisoners were killed and 75 wounded in the attack on the prison in the frontline town of Olenivka, in a part of Donetsk province held by separatists.
It accused Kyiv of targeting it with US-made HIMARS rockets, Russian news agencies reported.
Ukraine’s armed forces denied carrying out strike and blamed it on Russian forces, saying Russian artillery had targeted the prison.
“In this way, the Russian occupiers pursued their criminal goals — to accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions,” the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
The Russian defense ministry said the prison housed Ukrainian prisoners of war and that eight prison staff were also wounded. Russian-backed separatist leader Denis Pushilin was quoted as saying there were no foreigners among 193 people held there.
Video released by a Russian war correspondent showed Russian-backed military personnel sifting through the burned-out remains of what he said was the prison.
The smashed roof of the building was hanging down and the charred remains of bodies could be seen.
Separately Ukraine said at least five people had been killed and seven wounded in a Russian missile strike on the southeastern city of Mykolaiv, a river port just off the Black Sea, as Russia fired across frontlines in eastern and southern Ukraine.
A missile struck near a public transport stop, regional governor Vitaly Kim said on Telegram.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, did not immediately comment on the situation and Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
Ukraine, Russia trade blame for shelling of prison that killed 40
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Ukraine, Russia trade blame for shelling of prison that killed 40
- The Ukrainian troops were taken prisoner after the fierce fighting for Ukraine’s Azov Sea port of Mariupol
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
