Official Accuses Russia of Taking 500 Hostage in Attack on Hospital

Russian troops seized a hospital in Mariupol and took about 500 people hostage during another assault on the southern port city late Tuesday, according to regional leader Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russian troops drove 400 people from neighboring houses into Regional Intensive Care Hospital, Kyrylenko said on the messaging app Telegram. About 100 doctors and patients also are believed to be inside, he said. The troops are using those inside the hospital as human shields and are not allowing anyone to leave, he said. "It’s impossible to leave the hospital, they are shooting hard," Kyrylenko said, per the AP.

Kyrylenko said the main building of the hospital has been heavily damaged by shelling, but medical staff are continuing to treat patients in makeshift wards set up in the basement. He called on the world to respond to these "gross violations of the norms and customs of war, these egregious crimes against humanity." An estimated 20,000 civilians have used a humanitarian corridor to flee the port city, the AP reports. The route runs west for more than 160 miles to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia.

Mariupol, which had a population of 430,000 before the war has been under fire for more than two weeks. Local officials estimate the siege has killed more than 2,300 people. They say it has left residents desperate for food, water, heat and medicine. In the east, Russian forces unleashed scores of new artillery strikes on downtown Kharkiv Tuesday, hitting the city's historical center, including its main marketplace. Rescuers were pulling the bodies of dead civilians from destroyed apartment buildings. Civilians were also killed in Russian strikes on Kyiv and other major cities. (Two journalists working for Fox News were killed near the capital.)