Ukrainian authorities have raised this Friday the death toll to 53 following the attack launched on Monday by the Russian Army against a school that functioned as a humanitarian assistance center in the town of Komishuvaya, in the province of Zaporiyia, in the east of the country and partially occupied in the context of the invasion.
After the latest search tasks, emergency services have reported that the bodies of 53 people who would have been buried among the remains of the building after the attack have already been recovered.
The spokesperson for the General Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Yulia Barisheva, has confirmed these figures and has said that "it is estimated that another 50 people remain missing," so the number of victims could continue to rise, according to the Ukrinform news agency.
Barisheva explained that work continues in the area with the support of search dogs and has denounced that rescue teams operate under the constant threat of new bombardments and attacks directed at them.
The governor of Zaporiyia, Mijailo Semikin, denounced on Tuesday that "the enemy attacked the city insidiously at the moment when there were people receiving humanitarian aid at a community resilience center" and added that the Russian Army carried out "nine bombardments" against the area, using, among other types of armament, FAB-3000 bombs, designed to destroy fortifications.
On the other hand, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Matthias Schmale, stressed that most of the victims are "local residents who went to the local school to obtain assistance and employees of the local administration," before уточifying that subsequent attacks also ended the lives of two rescuers and four police officers.