The Kherson pediatric hospital was bombed by the Russian army in the first seconds of 2023. BFMTV was able to go there and talk to shocked staff who are making sure that the establishment can continue to operate despite the damage.
The New Year bells were still ringing when the Kherson Children’s Hospital was heavily shelled by Russian artillery. The attack did not cause any casualties despite the fragility of the young patients: in an incubator, a baby born six days ago already appears to be a miracle of war. Eight impacts and more than 700 broken windows were counted after the attack.
There was “a lot of destruction: broken windows, partially destroyed walls, doors too. And the children were there as well as the staff. The strikes were specifically aimed at the hospital buildings”, details Oleksy Matchenko, the doctor deputy head of the hospital.
In the section that usually accommodates children from two to eighteen months, the walls and windows are partially destroyed and debris now litters the floor. Fortunately, he was evacuated at the first alert.
A “terrifying” bombardment
“For us, it’s terrifying. And I don’t think just for us, but for all of humanity. It’s terrible. But you see yourself, if there were children here, with all this mixture concrete and glass, it would have been impossible”, shares Natala Mlutikova, the head of the newborn service, before being interrupted by a distant detonation. “And it continues,” she lets go of a tight throat.
From the first impacts, it was one of the nurses, on duty that evening, who took all the hospitalized children to the basement of the hospital, sheltered from the bombardments.
“Yes, they were scared, but we calmed them down. They said to me: ‘what is that, thunder?’, and I answered ‘yes of course it’s thunder, everything is fine, come down with us ‘” she says.
Targeting health infrastructure, a Russian strategy
Since the liberation of Kherson, the doctors with whom the correspondents of BFMTV present on the spot have been able to exchange denounce daily strikes on hospitals. Under international law, this is a war crime.
These bombardments are reminiscent of others, notably that of the Mariupol pediatric hospital which killed three people, including a young girl on March 10. In November, the WHO sounded the alarm after counting more than 700 attacks on health facilities since the start of the war.
