Pregnant Woman, Unborn Child Dead After Russian Airstrike on Ukrainian Hospital
A pregnant woman and her unborn child who became iconic images of Russia’s brutal bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital earlier this month have sadly died.
When the Russians launched an airstrike last week against a maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol, one of the most shocking images that emerged in the aftermath was a pregnant woman being carried off the rubble on a stretcher after being wounded around her midsection. Photographer Evgeniy Maloletka captured the image for The Associated Press, and the picture took off in the media as a stark reminder of how the brutality of war does not spare innocents and the most vulnerable.
The pregnant woman in the photo has died, according to the Associated Press. Her unborn child has also died.
The woman was injured in the Russian attack on the maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9.
Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka via Instagram. pic.twitter.com/n2v5I9k7DH
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 14, 2022
Surgeon Timur Marin told the AP that as the mother was being transferred to another hospital, doctors found that her pelvis was crushed and her hip was detached from the explosion. Medics said that as they tried to keep her alive, the woman realized she was losing her baby, so she cried out “kill me now!”
Sadly, the baby was delivered via cesarean section, but was said to have shown “no signs of life.” Doctors went back to the mother afterward and tried to resuscitate her for 30 minutes, but Marin said they couldn’t revive her.
“Both died,” Marin said. He explained that they didn’t get the woman’s name because her husband and father retrieved her body before they could take it, indicative that she isn’t being thrown into the mass graves being dug for the numerous people who’ve been killed in Mariupol.
The death of the mother and child is added to the three who were previously confirmed dead and the others who were wounded in the hospital attack. The Russian government has tried to denounce images of the hospital attack as “fake news” as they are accused of war crimes throughout their attack on Ukraine.
