Fatimah Otunsanya
Russian forces killed an 11-year-old girl and her mother in bomb strikes on the embattled city of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, local authorities announced on Tuesday.
Seven more people were wounded in the attack on the industrial hub that Russian forces are slowly clawing their way towards.
“The dead are an 11-year-old girl and her mother. Among the wounded is a 7-year-old girl,” regional official Vadym Filashkin wrote on social media.
He posted images showing several buildings on fire and windows blown out from rooms scattered with debris.
Filashkin said rescue workers were at the scene and that the number of casualties was still being determined.
“Every day in the Donetsk region brings new and ongoing war crimes by the Russians,” he added.
The wider Donetsk region, where Sloviansk is located, is one of five regions the Kremlin claims as part of Russia.
In 2014, Kremlin-backed separatists briefly captured Sloviansk amid the war in eastern Ukraine that erupted following nationwide pro-democracy protests and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine retook control after a few months and has held it since, with Russian forces around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city.
Before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Sloviansk had a population of around 100,000.
Separately, Russian-installed officials in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia said two people had been killed by Ukrainian forces over the last 24 hours.
AFP