Train station targeted in Ukraine refugee hub near Mariupol

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Evacuees from Mariupol are seen upon arrival at the car park of a shopping centre on the outskirts of the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is now a registration centre for displaced people, on March 15, 2022. – Exhausted, shivering and travelling in cars with shattered windscreens or no windows, some of the first evacuees from Ukraine’s besieged Mariupol drove into the nearest safe city of Zaporizhzhia on March 15. Around 20,000 people managed to leave the encircled port city on March 15 through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram. Mariupol is facing a humanitarian catastrophe according to aid agencies, since heavy bombardment has left some 400,000 inhabitants with no running water or heating and food running short. More than 2,100 residents have been killed in Mariupol since the Russian invasion, according to city authorities. (Photo by Emre CAYLAK / AFP)

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AFP) – Russian forces on Wednesday targeted the southern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia, where thousands of refugees are taking shelter after escaping the besieged port city of Mariupol, regional officials said.

“Civilian objects have been bombed for the first time in Zaporizhzhia,” the regional governor Alexander Starukh wrote on the Telegram social media platform.

“The rockets landed in the area of the Zaporozhye-2 railway station,” he added, specifying that there were no casualties.

The city of Zaporizhzhia is the first safe port of call for those fleeing Mariupol.

Many then head to the country’s west, to Poland or other bordering countries.

Mariupol is facing a humanitarian catastrophe according to aid agencies, since heavy bombardment has left some 400,000 inhabitants with no running water or heating, and food running short.

This Maxar satellite image taken and released on March 12, 2022, shows a multispectral view of fires in an industrial area of the Primorskyi district in western Mariupol, Ukraine. – The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is deteriorating quickly and has become catastrophic in a number of cities, the Russian military said on March 12, 2022, speaking on the 17th day of what Moscow has termed a “special military operation”. (Photo by various sources / AFP)

Around 20,000 people managed to leave the encircled port city Tuesday through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russian forces.

Taking Mariupol, which is situated 55 kilometres (34 miles) from Russia’s border, would mark a strategic breakthrough for President Vladimir Putin.

The city lies between territory held by Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region and the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014 and from where it has launched its assault on key southern towns.

© Agence France-Presse