A heartbreaking photo has emerged of a grieving father sobbing over his son’s dead body — draped in a blood-soaked hospital blanket — as Russia’s brutal attacks on Ukrainian cities continued to escalate.
The father, only identified as Serhii, could be seen cradling his teenage son Iliya’s head on Wednesday as the boy lay on a stretcher in a hospital in the hard-hit city of Mariupol.
Harrowing images showed the severely injured teen, who was dressed in his soccer uniform, earlier being wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher as his distraught father cried in the background.
The boy was missing both of his legs when he arrived in the back of a car. AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman was also rushed to the hospital with severe facial injuries. AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
A man and woman despair over damages following the recent shelling in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022. REUTERSThe boy was missing both his legs when he arrived in the back of a car and was rushed inside.
Another teen, who also appeared to have had his legs blown off, was pictured lying in the back of the same car. The condition of the second boy wasn’t immediately known.
In other grim scenes out of Mariupol, a bloodied woman was rushed to the hospital suffering severe facial injuries.
Mariupol has endured more than 25 hours of shelling. AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Damage from shelling is seen in downtown Kharkiv. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
A map shows Russian advances in Ukraine.
Damage is seen in Borodyanka, on the outskirts of Kyiv. Twitter/StahivUA via APDoctors also worked desperately to treat victims whose body parts had been obliterated by shelling.
Iliya, the slain teenager, was among the “mass casualties” in Mariupol after Vladimir Putin’s troops started targeting kindergartens, schools and apartment blocks, officials said.
The port city has endured more than 25 hours of endless Russian shelling, Mariupol’s deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov revealed on Thursday.
An aerial view shows a residential building destroyed by shelling in Kyiv. REUTERS
A Ukrainian serviceman walks as fire and smoke rise over a damaged logistic center after shelling in Kyiv. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Ambulance paramedics move a wounded civilian onto a stretcher and to a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine. Evgeniy Maloletka
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a damaged logistic center after shelling in Kyiv. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Damage caused by the shelling is seen in downtown Kharkiv. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
A building is engulfed in flames after the shelling in Kyiv. AP Photo/Efrem LukatskyOrlov said they feared about 200 innocent civilians had been killed in Mariupol — but no one knew for sure because officials haven’t been able to go out and “collect all the bodies.”
With Post wires
