Another innocent life... Kirill, 18 months old, dies on operating table in Mariupol
A young mother sobs following the death of her toddler son, the latest victim of Russian aggression in the increasingly savage conflict in Ukraine.
The 18-monthold boy’s body was wrapped in a blood-stained blue blanket after attempts to save him failed. Kirill was taken, badly wounded, to a hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol by his mother, Marina Yatsko, and her boyfriend, Fedor.
Doctors did all they could to save the child, but the injuries he sustained from Russian shelling were too great.
The tragedy was captured in photos by the
Associated Press news agency.
As Kirill’s parents wept, traumatised staff sat on the floor, trying to find the strength to carry on and deal with the next emergency.
Days earlier, hospital workers in Mariupol had pulled a wounded six-year-old girl from an ambulance.
Multiple attempts at resuscitation failed until eventually the frenetic activity stopped and the girl’s mother was left with her grief.
A doctor looked straight into the camera of an AP video journalist who had been allowed inside.
He had a message: “Show this to Putin.”