ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine – At least 23 people were killed and 28 wounded in a Russian missile attack on a convoy of civilian vehicles on the outskirts of Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhya, the regional governor said.
A Reuters eyewitness saw bodies lying on the ground or in vehicles at the city’s huge Orkhovo car market. A missile had left a crater in the ground near two rows of vehicles.
“So far, 23 have been killed and 28 injured. All citizens,” wrote Zaporizhzhya regional governor Oleksandr Starukh on the Telegram messaging app.
Police and emergency personnel rushed to the site of the missile attack, with the impact of which dust particles flew into the air and shrapnel was thrown at vehicles. The windows of the vehicles – mostly cars and three vans – were blown away.
The occupants of the vehicles were full of luggage, blankets and suitcases. A body leaned from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat of a yellow car, his left hand still grasping the steering wheel.
In the next car, plastic sheets were wrapped over the bodies of the woman and the young man in the green car. A dead cat was lying next to the young man in the back seat.
In front of that car lay two bodies in a white mini-van, its windows blown off and shrapnel on the side.
A woman who gave her name as Natalia said that she and her husband had gone to Zaporizhzhya to visit their children.
A man killed in a Russian missile attack is seen inside his car after the attack in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, on September 30, 2022.
A Russian missile attack leaves a pothole on a road in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, on September 30, 2022.
A car filled with gunfire and missile strikes shows a body in the passenger’s seat, following the September 30, 2022 attack in Zaporizhzhya.
First responders help a man who was involved in a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine on September 30, 2022.
“We were returning to our mother who is 90 years old. We are saved. It is a miracle,” she said, standing with her husband near their car.
Russia, which attacked Ukraine on February 24 in what it calls a special military operation, denies intentionally targeting civilians, although its attacks have devastated Ukrainian towns and cities.