The body of a three-week-old boy has been pictured lying on the floor of a makeshift morgue in the basement of a Mariupol hospital.
The newborn was injured in artillery shelling and could not be saved by doctors in the southern Ukrainian port city which is besieged by Russian forces.
The body was one of a number in the hospital’s underground floors which were originally built as food storage but now is a morgue.
A doctor, Valeriy Drengar, said: “All the other hospitals were bombed and no one could collect them. There’s no emergency services, there’s nobody. Relatives…I don’t know where we will put them, how we will bury them. In a mass grave? I have no idea.”
Dr Valeriy Drengar shines his mobile phone light on to bodies in the hospital basement
Dr Drengar said the district hospital was not taking any more bodies as its morgue was beyond maximum capacity.
He said: “The District 17 Hospital does not accept them. Emergency does not take them. We are the only location that takes (injured people) them in. There is no other place.”
His hospital is part of a complex of medical buildings designed to be a general hospital. The other wards, such as the maternity ward, have been destroyed by Russian troops.
It now serves as an emergency centre, a maternity ward and a morgue.
The key updates on Wednesday:
• Reports ’15-point’ peace deal being ‘seriously discussed’ as Putin says he’s ‘ready to talk’
• Zelenskyy says peace talks ‘more realistic’ – as European leaders risk train ride to Kyiv to offer support
• Johnson meeting controversial Saudi leader in bid to end ‘addiction’ to Russian oil
• Fox News cameraman and Ukrainian journalist killed near Kyiv
• More than 122,000 Britons have now registered interest for refugee scheme
In the hospital, newborn babies are sleeping in cribs covered by blankets to protect them from glass shattered during shelling.
Newborn babies are sleeping in cribs covered by blankets to protect them from glass shattered during shelling
A nurse said: “Everything fell upon us and we simply carried the children to here.”
“Look at this equipment here,” she said pointing to an incubator. If it stops working that’s it.”
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have struggled to stay alive without heat, food and clean water in the blockaded port.
But on Tuesday, more than 28,800 escaped through several humanitarian corridors, city officials said.
Read more: Thousands flee Mariupol in biggest evacuation yet from besieged city
The successful evacuation by thousands of cars came even as Russian forces renewed their shelling.
In the encircled seaport of Mariupol, a Russian airstrike destroyed a theatre building where hundreds of people were sheltering, the city council said. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries.
Russian troops also seized the city’s largest hospital on Tuesday, holding hundreds people hostage inside the building, a regional official said.
