Death toll from Russian strike on Ukrainian aid centre rises to at least 37 as rescuers search rubble for a third day
The death toll from Monday’s Russian bombing of a school used as an aid distribution point in Komyshuvakha, in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, has risen to at least 37, with 59 people still listed as missing and rescuers warning more victims may lie under the rubble.
The death toll from a Russian bombing of an aid distribution point in the Ukrainian village of Komyshuvakha has risen to at least 37, officials said on Wednesday, as rescue teams entered a third day of searching the rubble of a school where local people had gathered to collect humanitarian aid.
Rescuers were still working through the wreckage of the former school in the village, in Ukraine’s south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, the acting head of the regional military administration, Mykhailo Semikin, said on Wednesday. Fifty-nine people were still listed as missing, according to Ivan Fedorov, co-head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Defence Council.
The strike took place on Monday, 2 November. Ukrainian officials say Russian forces dropped guided aerial bombs on the school building, which was being used as a humanitarian aid distribution centre — an “Invincibility Point” where residents could collect supplies — at a time when people had gathered there for the regular Monday distribution.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russian forces first dropped aerial bombs on the school building as people arrived to collect aid, and then struck the shelter beneath it with further bombs. Fedorov said the attack involved a FAB-3000, a three-ton aerial bomb, and Ukrainian outlets reported that at least nine guided bombs were dropped on the settlement.
By Wednesday morning, police said 37 bodies had been recovered from the rubble and 12 victims had been identified. Some of the remaining bodies could not be identified visually, and specialists were collecting biological samples from relatives to build DNA profiles for comparison. Officials warned that as many as 38 more people could still be trapped beneath the debris, though it was unclear whether anyone remained alive.
Among the dead were two rescue workers, Denys Konovalenko and Oleksii Sushchevskyi, both aged 44, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. Dog handlers and bomb disposal experts were working at the site alongside rescue teams, and police urged anyone searching for missing relatives to contact a dedicated centre for people missing under special circumstances.
Russia’s defence ministry said the attack targeted Ukrainian military units around Komyshuvakha and two other settlements, and claimed up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen were killed. Both Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians, but the strike has been described by officials and aid observers as one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Ukraine this year.
The toll has climbed steadily since the attack. Earlier reports put the death toll at 31, with five injured and nearly 50 missing, before rising to 33 on Tuesday and then to 37 on Wednesday. Authorities in Zaporizhzhia declared three days of mourning, from 3 to 5 November, for the victims.
Komyshuvakha lies about 20 kilometres from the front line and has been treated as a front-line settlement since November 2025, facing repeated guided-bomb attacks, according to Ukrainian investigators. Its school had become a lifeline for residents who remained in the area, offering a regular point at which to receive food and other supplies.
The strike came a day after a six-day local ceasefire to evacuate civilians from the Russian-occupied southern town of Oleshky expired, an evacuation in which nearly 800 people were moved out. That pause, the longest local halt in fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, had raised brief hopes of further humanitarian arrangements; the Komyshuvakha bombing has underlined how quickly such hopes can collapse.
The wider war continued on Wednesday. Russia said it had hit two power stations in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions, as well as a cargo vessel at sea near Odesa, keeping up near-daily strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as temperatures fall and a week before US-brokered talks are due to resume.
Those talks are set to bring Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiators together in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November, the first direct three-way meeting since February, to discuss security guarantees, an energy ceasefire and a Black Sea truce. For the families in Komyshuvakha, however, the immediate question is far more urgent: whether the search of the rubble will bring back anyone alive, or only more names for the list of the dead.
More in News
Photo: File:Johannesburg-city-skyline-night.jpg
NewsSouth Africans vote in municipal elections as anger over services threatens fresh ANC losses
South Africans are voting in municipal elections on Wednesday, with anger over corruption, crime and failing public services threatening to inflict fresh losses on the ruling African National Congress.
Photo: Parched, cracked earth during a drought (file image)
NewsUN warns world is not ready as climate adaptation funding falls far short of $305bn annual need
UNEP’s 2026 Adaptation Gap Report finds developing countries will need about $305 billion a year by 2035 to adapt to climate change, while international public finance reached only $28.2–31.7 billion in 2024.
Photo: Volodymyr Zelenskyy (file image)
NewsZelenskyy confirms Ukraine, Russia and US will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11 for first three-way talks since February
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, the first direct three-way talks since February, to discuss security guarantees, an energy ceasefire and a Black Sea truce.