The maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine that was bombed by Russian forces. Credit: Screenshot from videoGreece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday said the country is ready to rebuild a maternity hospital destroyed last week by Russian shelling in the southeast Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
“I want to express my abhorrence for what is happening in Ukraine and in Mariupol in particular, which has become a symbol of resistance. You know of our specific interest, as there are more than 100,000 Ukrainians of Greek descent living there. As a minimum show of support, once the hostilities are over, the Greek government will take on the reconstruction of the maternity hospital in Mariupol that was bombed,” Mitsotakis said.
Greece is ready to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the center of the Greek minority in Ukraine, a city dear to our hearts and symbol of the barbarity of the war.
— Prime Minister GR (@PrimeministerGR) March 18, 2022
The Greek prime minister also referred to the issue with a post on Twitter, saying that “Greece is ready to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the center of the Greek minority in Ukraine, a city dear to our hearts and symbol of the barbarity of the war.”
Mariupol hospital destroyed by bomb
On March 9, Ukraine said that a Russian strike hit a children’s and maternity hospital in the southeastern city of Mariupol – which has already suffered days of shelling.
Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity. pic.twitter.com/FoaNdbKH5k
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 9, 2022
Russia claimed the next day that the airstrike on a children’s hospital in Mariupol was staged by Ukrainians themselves.
The Russian embassy to the UK claimed a photograph of a pregnant woman injured during the Mariupol maternity hospital attack is fake and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov branded the attack a “pathetic outcry”
during failed peace talks in Turkey
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Mariupol: “Nothing is left standing”
A Greek official, who was the last remaining western diplomat in Mariupol described harrowing scenes that may constitute war crimes after he was finally evacuated from the city.
Manolis Androulakis, Greece’s Consul General, who spoke to journalist Kostas Onisenko from a secure location in central Ukraine, was left speechless over the devastation the city has suffered. “Words are not enough to describe the tragedy,” he said.
Mariupol has been heavily targeted by Russian shelling in the past two weeks and more than 30,000 people are estimated to have fled already. At least 2,400 civilians have been killed so far in the city, Ukraine officials say.
“Every day the situation was becoming worse. The city was encircled and the battles were closing in. Civilians were hit. The civilian infrastructure was hit. A hospital was hit, a library, a university. When I say they were hit, I mean nothing was left standing,” Androulakis said.