This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has condemned an attack that killed three of its workers who were distributing aid in the frontline Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Ukrainian presidential officials said earlier that Russian forces had attacked Red Cross vehicles in an artillery strike that also wounded two other Red Cross workers.
“Another Russian war crime. Today, the occupier attacked vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross humanitarian mission in the Donetsk region,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X, formerly Twitter. “In this war, everything is absolutely clear — Russia sows evil, Ukraine defends life.”
Miryjana Spoljaric, the president of the ICRC, condemned the attack in a statement on September 12 which confirmed that three of the organization’s workers had been killed by shelling that hit the site of a planned frontline aid distribution point in the Donetsk region.
“I condemn attacks on Red Cross personnel in the strongest terms,” Spoljaric said on X. “It’s unconscionable that shelling would hit an aid distribution site. Our hearts are broken today as we mourn the loss of our colleagues and care for the injured. This tragedy unleashes a wave of grief all too familiar to those who have lost loved ones in armed conflict.”
The statement added that ICRC teams are regularly present in the Donetsk region, and their vehicles are marked with the Red Cross emblem.
Photos released by local police showed a truck with the ICRC emblem on its side engulfed in flames.
Earlier on September 12, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin reported that three people were killed and two injured in the village of Virolyubivka in the Kostyantynivka district.
“The village came under artillery fire this morning. One of the shells hit the territory of the enterprise where people were. A truck with humanitarian aid and a car were destroyed,” he said.
ICRC employees had brought fuel briquettes to residents for heating before winter. They were unloading the aid when the attack happened, the Prosecutor-General’s Office said later on Telegram.
One of the two employees who were injured in the strike is in serious condition, the Prosecutor-General’s Office added.
