Bad newsStrike on Aid Centre in Zaporizhzhia Region Kills at Least 26, Dozens Missing
Two waves of aerial bombs hit a school used as an aid distribution point and shelter in Komyshuvakha on Monday. At least 26 people died, including six emergency workers and police, and 27 are missing, Ukrainian officials say.
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People in Komyshuvakha, a village in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, collect food parcels there every Monday. On Monday 2 November they were hit while they gathered. Ukrainian officials say Russian aerial bombs killed at least 26 people at an aid distribution centre and the shelter next to it. Twenty-seven more are missing, according to Regina Kharchenko, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia city council.
Both Al Jazeera, drawing on Reuters, and the Guardian, drawing on agencies, give the toll as at least 26. Earlier reports counted fewer. The dead include two members of a rescue crew and four police officers, according to Ukraine’s emergency services. Five people, among them two rescue workers, were in hospital.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that a few bombs fell as people were arriving, and that a second strike hit the shelter. The building was a school, closed to pupils because the village lies too close to the front line, he said. Zelenskyy argued that Russian forces could not have been unaware of the weekly gatherings. There was no immediate comment from Russia, Al Jazeera reports. These accounts come from Ukrainian officials and have not been independently confirmed in either report.
Rescue efforts under fire
As night fell, emergency responders used torches to search the rubble of collapsed buildings, according to photos and video posted by local officials. Mykhailo Semikin, a military official in Zaporizhzhia, said Russian drones struck the same area again, hindering the rescue effort on Monday evening. Regional police said officers and rescuers were trying to reach residents believed to be trapped.
The strike came a week after a pause in fighting that allowed an evacuation from Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city in the south. The Guardian describes it as the longest pause in fighting between the two countries in the war, which is in its fifth year. Zelenskyy said Russia had missed a chance to build on it. The Kremlin has said no similar missions are planned for now.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said hours after the attack that delegations from Ukraine and Russia would meet in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November. He said the talks would address humanitarian measures and ending the war. They would be the first US-mediated round since February. Neither outlet reports any agreement on protecting aid sites, and the final toll depends on a search that is still under way.
