2 yıl önce

Italy: ready to rebuild theatre in Ukraine's Mariupol

The offer comes as rescue workers continue their desperate search for any survivors buried beneath the rubble of the theatre in the besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol.

Reuters

Moscow has denied its forces bombed the theatre.

The Italian government is ready to rebuild a theatre in the besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol which was devastated by a bomb attack, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said after a cabinet meeting.

"The cabinet ... has approved my proposal to offer Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible. Theatres of all countries belong to the whole (of) humanity," Franceschini wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Ukraine has said the theatre was hit by a Russian air strike on Wednesday while people sheltered there from bombardments.

Rescue workers searched desperately for any survivors buried beneath the rubble of the theatre Friday.

Twenty-four hours after Mariupol's once-gleaming whitewashed theatre was hollowed out by a Russian strike, the number of dead, injured or trapped is still unclear.

Ukraine's ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said a bombshelter in the building had survived the impact, and some "adults and children" had emerged alive.

"Work is underway to unlock the basement," she said, amid fears that up to 1,000 people may have been taking refuge underground at the time of the blast.

The attack on a civilian building marked with the words "DETI", or "children" in Russian, has sparked a wave of international revulsion and heaped pressure on Russia's few remaining allies – most notably China – to condemn Moscow's apparent deliberate targeting of civilians.

Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry said the allegation that Moscow's air force had bombed a theatre was a lie and that the truth would emerge despite what it called attempts to frame Moscow.