Russian rocket attack on a Ukrainian train station has killed 50 people including five children who were trying to flee the area, authorities have claimed.
According to local media, around four thousand people were trying to flee the area from Kramatorsk train station in the east of Ukraine when a rocket hit it on Friday morning.
Graphic pictures of the scene showed bodies strewn across the station, next to the few belongings they had packed to take with them to their news lives.
Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in the aftermath of the attack that 50 people had died in the attack, and a further 98 – including 16 children – had been taken to hospital.
Pictures of the rocket shared by journalists at the scene showed it had “for our children” written on the side.
They were being evacuated amid fears that Russian forces are going to escalate their attempts to take the area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed casualties in a social media post, adding: “[Russian forces] are cynically destroying the civilian population.
“This is an evil that has no limits. And if it is not punished, it will never stop,” he wrote.
Zelenskyy said no Ukrainian soldiers were at the station when it was targeted.
A witness said: “I saw and heard the shelling of burning cars and the tail from the Russian missile.
“It was difficult to get to the station itself because of the burning cars parked nearby – people were scared and ran in different directions.”
A family, with luggage and children in tow, is also seen running away from the site of the explosion in fear as cars and soldiers block the road to the station.
The onlooker, who has not been named, added: “As it happened, I immediately ran out of the house to help people.
“At the station, there were exclusively civilian – not military – women and children who were trying to get out of the city because of the impending danger from the Russian army.”
TYT Newsroom
