SEVEN people, including two Church workers, sheltering in a Caritas Ukraine office in Mariupol were killed when Russian forces fired on the building, according to a statement on Caritas Ukraine’s website.
“Unfortunately, we do not have accurate information about the people who were in the office at the time, so we cannot say who was there that day,” the statement said.
Caritas Ukraine said it was praying for the eternal rest of those killed in the attack.
There was also an attack on a seminary in a small village north of Kyiv the same day.
Yesterday, Pope Francis said “the forces of evil” were at work in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
In a message to Chernivsti, where many displaced Ukrainians are taking refuge, Pope Francis lamented “the suffering inflicted on so many frail and defenceless persons, the many civilians massacred and the innocent victims among the young, the desperate plight of women and children”.
People of goodwill, he said, must “speak out forcefully in order to demand, in the name of God, the end of these abominable actions”.
What is happening in Ukraine, he said, was confirmation that “war is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil”.
The destruction of the Caritas building was the latest attack in a month-long campaign of indiscriminate shelling in Mariupol.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko told Reuters about 21,000 people had been killed but that officials had stopped counting.
While Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region last week, they have been building up in the east of Ukraine.
One city in the east is Kharkiv, where a local priest has called on western Catholics for prayers.
He said the immediate concern is in Donbas, where “everything will be decided”.
“If they’re victorious there, they’ll go further and try to capture the whole of Ukraine,” he said.
He said many Catholics had also died in the besieged port of Mariupol.
“My own city of Kharkiv remains under constant fire, as they try to prevent our army moving to defend Donetsk and Luhansk,” Msgr Semenkov said.
“The Russians are preparing to fling all their available forces into heavy combat in the east, where the shelling is already intensifying. In this situation, we need the prayers and support of Western Catholics.”
A priest in embattled Kramatorsk said it, too, had remained “under constant fire” since at least 50 civilians were killed in a Russian missile attack on the town’s main rail station on April 8.
“Though we have no news as to whether Catholics were caught up in the blast, many are now on the road to other towns in central and western Ukraine,” Fr Victor Vonsovich of Kramatorsk’s Holy Spirit Parish said.
“The situation is completely uncertain — it can be quiet for half an hour, and then they can start shelling and bombing again, with no one knowing which districts might be hit.
“My own area remains under Ukrainian control, but anyone entering or leaving can be hit by a shell or Grad rocket and end up dead.
“I’m now the only priest left in this church deanery, and I’ve made no preparations to leave, despite fears the atrocities which happened in towns near Kyiv could soon happen here.”
