CNN
—
A Reuters employee is missing from a hotel in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, which was hit by a Russian attack on the night of Saturday to Sunday.
A six-person team from the news agency had stayed at the hotel as part of its coverage of the war in Ukraine.
“The Sapphire Hotel in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, where a Reuters team is based, was hit by a bomb attack on Saturday, August 24, 2024. One of our colleagues is missing, while two others have been hospitalized for treatment,” a Reuters spokesperson said in a statement sent to CNN.
Three other colleagues are missing, the news agency said. It is working closely with the authorities in Kramatorsk to “urgently” obtain “further information.”
The Reuters team managed to capture video of the massive damage to the hotel on Sunday morning. It shows rescue workers using flashlights to search through huge piles of rubble. Footage taken inside the hotel shows several destroyed hotel rooms.
The video also showed significant damage to the hotel’s roof.
Kramatorsk has been a frequent target of Russian shelling since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022. It remains one of the largest cities under Ukrainian control in the besieged east of the country.
In April last year, Russian forces carried out a missile attack on Kramatorsk railway station, which served as a shelter for civilians fleeing the fighting.
More than 50 people, including several children, died in this one attack, which Human Rights Watch and SITU Research called a “blatant war crime.”
