The strike hit a residential area with homes, cafés, and shops, less than a mile from a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The hospital received mass casualties.
“We heard the sound of a drone, and moments later there was a loud explosion,” says Karina Ivanova, an MSF anesthetist. “Patients began arriving one after another with blast injuries to their limbs, abdomens, chests, and heads. Some also had burns. Several patients had severe bleeding and needed emergency surgery. One patient told me he had just stepped out for a coffee but ended up in the hospital with serious injuries.”
Local medical staff, working alongside an MSF anesthetist and paramedics, treated 15 people, including four with severe injuries. An MSF ambulance transferred two women to a hospital in Dnipro for specialized surgery.
Some patients, including an 11-year-old child, experienced acute stress reactions and received mental health support from local psychologists.
Repeated attacks by Russian forces are killing and wounding civilians throughout Ukraine, including its capital, Kyiv, as well as regions near the front lines and towns and cities hundreds of miles away, in the center and west of the country. MSF condemns attacks on civilian infrastructure. This is a war against people — civilians — trying to live their everyday lives.
