Translated material
Associated Press: Up to 600 People Could Have Died in Mariupol Drama Theater Bombing
Up to 600 people could have died in the bombing of the Drama Theater in Mariupol on March 16, the Associated Press writes, based on its own calculations. Earlier, Mariupol authorities spoke of 300 dead.
The agency relies on interviews with 23 people, including those who took shelter in the theater from the bombing and participated in rescuing people from the rubble, as well as photographs, videos and plans of the theater.
All witnesses interviewed by reporters said they saw no more than 200 people saved. Many estimated the number of people in the building at the time of the airstrike at about a thousand. Eyewitnesses also said that at least a hundred people were at the field kitchen outside the theater at the time of the strike; none of those who were there survived, the agency writes.
None of the AP's interlocutors saw Ukrainian troops operating inside the building and have no doubt that the strike was carried out by Russian aircraft.
The AP emphasizes that it is impossible to know the exact number of victims, including because the theater area is under the control of Russian forces, who are presumably removing bodies and debris.
Without access to the site for investigators and after the debris has been removed, eyewitness accounts and photos and videos of the theater before and after the bombing will be critical, says Clint Williamson, who was the U.S. special envoy for war crimes from 2006 to 2009.
- At the end of April, Mariupol mayoral adviser Petro Andryushchenko said that Russians were removing the dead from under the rubble of the theater and taking them to a mass grave in the village of Mangush.