Fresh reports reaching the desk of Africa Daily News, New York have revealed that the death toll from Russia’s overnight strikes in the Odesa region of Ukraine has risen to up to 20 dead individuals as gotten from Ukraine’s emergency services.
Reports revealed that at least 16 people had been killed in a residential building, and four more, including one child, were killed in another strike at a recreation centre. A third strike had landed in a field, authorities said.
Read Also: Sweden Resolves To Move Demining Anti-Tank Weapons To Ukraine
A rescue operation is ongoing and 38 people were injured in the strikes. Previous updates from Ukrainian authorities suggested two children had been killed.
“We don’t expect to find anyone alive, but there is a chance,” first deputy interior minister Yevhenii Yenin said earlier on Friday, speaking from the scene of the attacks.
No fewer than 30 people were inflicted with various degrees of injuries when two Russian missiles hit a nine-story apartment building and a resort very close to the Black Sea port city early Friday morning, less than 24 hours after Ukraine retook Snake Island.
According to a statement from Kyiv, ‘a Russian missile struck a multi-story apartment building near the Black Sea port of Odesa early on Friday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 30’.
Ukraine further claimed that another missile hit two buildings of a recreational centre in the region killing no fewer than three people and injuring another who is presently receiving treatment.
The hit came a day after Russia’s defence ministry announced its troops had withdrawn from Snake Island in the Black Sea as a “gesture of goodwill” aimed at demonstrating Moscow’s support for restarting food exports from Ukraine’s ports.
Moscow kept up its push to take control of Lysychansk on Thursday, the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province, with Russia’s separatist proxies claiming they had entered the city.
A second missile that hit Odesa’s Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi district has killed three people, including one child, and injured one other person, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs says.
