Ukraine war: Pregnant woman and her baby die after Mariupol hospital attack

A pregnant woman and her baby have died following Russia’s shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, reports the Associated Press news agency.

They had been rushed to another hospital after the attack last Wednesday, where doctors laboured to keep her alive.

Realising she was losing her baby, medics said, she cried out to them: “Kill me now.”

Surgeon Timur Marin found the woman's pelvis crushed and hip detached. While medics performed a caesarean section the baby showed no signs of life and the mother did not survive the operation.

Medics didn’t have time to get the woman’s name but said her husband and father came to take away her body.

Authorities said last week the attack had killed three people and left 17 others injured.

The southern port city of Mariupol has been under Russian assault for several days.

The Kremlin says no patients or medics were inside the facility during the attack and says the children's hospital was a front for Ukrainian ultra-nationalist militias.

Moscow also claims that the woman in these videos are paid actors and has slammed the footage as fake news.

Mariupol’s residents have been without water, food supplies, power or heat for more than a week while shelling and shooting in the area continues.

Meanwhile, the Azov Sea port city with a population of 430,000, which is key to creating a land bridge from Russia to Russian-annexed Crimea, is slowly starving.

In the makeshift new maternity ward, each approaching childbirth brings new tension.

“All birthing mothers have lived through so much,” said nurse Olga Vereshagina.