Russian attack on Ukrainian cancer hospital is a crime against humanity

Reporter and journalist María Senovilla, a contributor to Atalayar, analysed from the field the consequences of the Russian bombardment of the Ukrainian capital, which left more than 200 injured, many of them children. Also, with NATO's 75th anniversary, Maria details the feelings on the ground about the arrival of aid packages with the US elections on 5 November on the horizon. 

Monday's attack, the worst you can remember, and you've been there the whole war since Russia invaded Ukraine.

When you asked people in Kiev they told you that it reminded them of the early stages of the war, when Kiev was surrounded, and that they had not seen such a brutal attack, many because they left Ukraine in those first weeks, but when they returned they had experienced more massive attacks, especially this year, but like Monday's attack they could not remember it. 

How did you find out that these missiles were coming?  

Through various applications and various Telegram channels, which are operated by the people who are in the radar and air defence systems, it is a public service to warn the population when there is an attack, beyond the sirens that sound in the streets, which many of us have become accustomed to, and perhaps we don't pay enough attention, in these channels, every time there is a siren they say why, they say if a Russian plane has taken off, or if there is a kamikaze drone in the air... 

When there is a massive attack of this kind, they give enough detail for people to take it seriously. At 10 o'clock in the morning we started to receive on our mobile phones that there were a large number of missiles in the air, coming from Crimea and from Russian territory, and that they seemed to be heading towards the city of Kiev. 

An alarm that many people took seriously. Down to the metro stations, down to the shelters, and yet it could not prevent more than 40 dead, and almost 200 wounded, in a span of just an hour, an hour and a half, and Kiev bore the brunt of it. 

Above all, that children's oncology hospital, where the disaster was enormous. Every life is important, no doubt, but the bombing of a children's hospital is an absolutely unacceptable criminal act. 

It was the image that most shocked those of us who were here in Kiev, and those who were also outside Ukraine, because it was also possible to record with a camera the direct impact of a hypersonic missile destroying one of the hospital buildings. In addition to being a massive attack with 38 missiles, which were sent from different points, Putin mixed cruise missiles with hypersonic missiles, which fly at different speeds, making the work of the anti-aircraft defences difficult. 

They worked flat out, between 10:15 and 11 in the morning, it was incredible to hear the explosions all over the city, most of them were air defence missiles stopping those Russian missiles, but they couldn't stop the 38. Seven of them hit, and one of them hit the toxicology building of that children's cancer hospital, the largest in Ukraine and one of the largest in Europe, by the way, a very modern hospital, where treatments were implemented that are not given in any other centre in Ukraine. 

In that toxicology building, which was reduced to rubble, is where the children's dialysis unit and several intensive care units with artificial kidney were located.  

What is the reaction of citizens to such situations? In times of tension, when you hear sirens, how do Ukrainians act? 

When I arrived there were hundreds of people crowded at the door because they wanted to help, and in the meantime, the air-raid alarms were going off. While I was there I saw a missile pass over my head, so the attack wasn't over, and people were pouring into the streets to go to the centre while the attack was being filmed live. 

There were lots and lots of parents of children who had been there at some point, there were lots and lots of young people, people who had come out of the offices, people of all ages. I insist, to try to help, there was a huge human chain and they removed by hand, stone by stone, the rubble of that building until they reached the ground floors where there were bodies. We don't know if they were alive or lifeless because at that moment, after several hours of work, the civilians and the press were invited to leave ground zero because they didn't want us to film how they pulled those little bodies out of the rubble. 

It was not necessary to film bloody children to understand the brutality and magnitude of this attack. They were hours of chaos and pain, but of a solidarity that I had never seen in any of the bombings I have covered over the last two and a half years. 

People came from all the surrounding streets, from the hospital, they arrived on foot because the traffic was cut off for several kilometres around and loaded with jerry cans of water and boxes of fruit because an appeal was made by the authorities to please bring water and fruit for the children, because obviously they lost communications, electricity, water because of the bombing and you can't imagine how impressive it was to see those thousands of people coming, they started to put water on the walls of the hospital because there was no more room inside and then they went in to remove stones by hand. 

The result is terrifying: six dead doctors from the hospital, at least one child, although there are five others in a very serious condition and, although they were not victims at the time, on Monday morning, there are many oncological and experimental treatments that were only applied in that hospital. So the children who have gone home without receiving it, or those who will no longer be able to receive it in the future, will probably also die. 

It's terrible, these are the consequences. War is war, but it has always had minimum rules that people with a minimum of conscience respected. Now, however, it seems that this conscience has been lost. Hence what the NATO summit has approved, this support for Ukraine, I don't know if there have already been reactions there in Kiev. NATO's support for Ukraine, for Zelensky, is clear support and will hopefully allow for no delays beyond the lapses of Biden calling Putin to Zelensky. 

The lapses have not yet had any repercussions, they have been very recent, but in the coming days there will be memes, because here in Ukraine they are very good at overcoming everything and making memes out of it. But it has been noticeable how NATO's support for Ukraine, as you rightly say, has been present from the first day of the summit. 

And as the summit went on and the consequences of that terrible bombing passed, people were calming down. Many of them already assume that on 5 November Trump is very likely to win the election. They are calming down, I noticed more concern a few months ago and the unanimous message that has been launched these days from that summit for the 75th anniversary of NATO has calmed things down a bit. 

Nor can they do much more. They have to wait for these promises to be fulfilled, for the training centres and the hub to receive the material to begin to be operational and for the aid package to be received, which is coming much more slowly than expected and is very necessary. All they have to do is wait, but after hearing NATO's message, they will be a little calmer.