A pregnant woman pictured being carried from a Ukrainian maternity hospital after it was badly shelled by Russian forces has died along with her unborn baby, Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry said Monday.
The woman, who hasn’t been named publicly, was photographed Wednesday on a stretcher as she was being taken to an ambulance in the devastation and ruin of the besieged city of Mariupol.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “an atrocity” and said three people died in the bombing. It is unclear whether the unnamed woman was one of them.
The foreign ministry announced the woman’s death in a tweet and repeated the government’s plea for Western powers to enforce a no-fly zone over the country to prevent future airstrikes.
On Saturday, The Associated Press spoke to Dr. Timur Marin, the surgeon who tried to save the woman’s life, who said her pelvis had been crushed and a hip had been detached. The baby was delivered by cesarean section but showed “no signs of life,” he said.
“More than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results,” Marin said told the AP. “Both died.”
The woman's father and husband arrived to retrieve her body, the AP reported, citing medical staff members, saving her from being buried in one of Mariupol's mass graves. Medics said they didn't have time in the chaos to ask for her name.
