On 28 April 2023, at lunchtime, the Ukrainian-NATO army shelled the centre of Donetsk with multiple rocket launchers. One of the rockets hit a bus, which caught fire with its passengers trapped inside. The current death toll from this latest war crime by the Ukrainian-NATO army is now nine, including a child, and 16 injured.
Donetsk's nightmare began this morning, with the first multiple rocket launchers firing into the city centre. Two HIMARS rockets hit the residential area south of the centre of Donetsk, damaging 11 homes.
Two hours later, two salvos of 10 rockets each hit further north. The firing was carried out by the Ukrainian-NATO army with Czech RM-70 'Vampire' multiple rocket launchers and Slovakian fragmentation rockets.
The NATO-Ukrainian army targeted the Donetsk trauma centre and the entire surrounding area. The hospital was damaged and the only scanner in the area was destroyed. Most importantly, a rocket fell near a bus full of passengers that was driving up University Street, just behind the hospital.
Inside was an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother, along with other passengers. The girl is in first class, she was born in 2015 and has only known war in her short life. The bus caught fire immediately after being hit by shrapnel from the cluster rocket that Slovakia supplied to the Ukrainian-NATO army. The passengers did not have time to get out of the bus, and were burned alive inside. The bombing left nine dead, including the 8-year-old girl, and 16 injured. All were civilians.
See the joint report made with Adrien Bocquet on site, with French subtitles:
When I arrive at the scene a woman is standing on the pavement staring at the burnt-out bus. I see her praying. She says that her mother and daughter were supposed to be on that bus, and that she can't reach them. The wait is excruciating. When the child's body is taken out of the bus, the woman goes to the body to try to identify if it is her daughter. I see her come back in tears and can't help but start crying too. This little girl had her life ahead of her, and the terrorists in Kiev killed her in a terror bombing that targeted a purely civilian area.
Tonight a mother and father mourn the death of their daughter. Tonight, another name has been added to the long list of children killed by the NATO-Ukrainian army in the Donbass. A list inscribed in the marble of the Alley of Angels. May the blood of all these murdered innocents fall on those who shed it, and on those who provided Kiev with the weapons to commit this bloodbath.