A miner, his wife and their 1.5-month-old son were killed in a Russian missile strike in Kryvyi Rih

YANA OSADCHA  In Kryvyi Rih, a family has died as a result of a Russian rocket hitting a residential high-rise building, including mother, father and a 1.5-month-old boy. His seven-year-old brother, who was staying with his grandmother at the time of the strike, became an orphan.

"The miracle didn't happen", Daria Herasymchuk, the Adviser-Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for children's rights and child rehabilitation, commented on it.

As a result of the rocket strike, 4 people were killed: a family with a small child and a 64-year-old woman, and 13 people were injured, including four children.

Rescuers have been clearing the rubble of the house for 15 hours. The last people to get out from under the rubble were a young woman, and then a child who was one and a half years old.

As local TV channel Rudana reported, the victims were spouses Oleksandr and Liudmyla Korneichuk and their younger son Tymophii.

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Relatives hoped the child survived as they were looking for him for more than 12 hours.

Viktoria Korneichuk, a relative of the victims, has said her nephew Okeksandr was the first to be taken from underneath the rubble who was alive at the time. He was taken to the hospital, but the man could not be saved. Then his wife Liudmyla was found dead under the rubble.

"We still had very high hopes that Tymoshka, our little blue-eyed bunny... that he would stay alive. It took so much time to sort out the rubble, and they searched for the child for more than 12 hours. But we didn't lose hope.

We thought maybe he was somewhere under some kind of an overlap, some big block...maybe the child was still alive...", Viktoria says. Unfortunately, at night it became known that the little boy did not survive, either. Oleksandr and Liudmyla Korneichuk worked at the Gvardiiska mine of the Kryvyi Rih iron ore combine.

Olexandr was a tunneller. A year ago, the family bought an apartment in the building where the Russian rocket hit on 16 December. In the first months of the war, Liudmyla and her sons were evacuated to Poland, but in August 2022, they returned to Kryvyi Rih.

On the eve of the missile strike, Korneichuk's eldest son, 7-year-old Maksym, went to the village to visit his grandmother. "Now Maksym is still with his grandmother. He doesn't know anything yet, but he understands that something has happened.

So far, no one has dared to tell him. They said so far that the parents are in the hospital. And he's always trying to call them", says Viktoria Korneichuk.

Pavlo, a friend of Oleksandr, has announced a fundraiser for the family's funeral, but closed it ahead of schedule: a lot of people responded. The funeral of the family will take place on Tuesday, 20 December. Now Ukrainians are being urged to help 7-year-old Arina Malenkova, who was found under the rubble of the same house.

The child received severe wounds to the chest; Arina is in intensive care, plugged to a lung ventilator. The girl was taken to the hospital by a local resident who was passing near the house at the time.

Passers-by formed a chain and passed the injured people to each other. Arina was in her pyjamas.

The child was probably still asleep, because the Russians hit the house in the morning. There were traces of blood on the girl's chest. "I kept her curled up all the way.

Then I realised that her lungs were affected", said Serhii, the girl's saviour.

The Malenkov family was left homeless and asks for help to save the child.

Card details for assistance (PUMB bank):

• Maryna Malenkova (mother) - 5355 2800 0148 4193,
• Vitalii Malenkov (dad) - 4041 7026 0013 4518.

In case card limits are exceeded and payments are not accepted, you can transfer money using the following banking details:

• IBAN number: UA713348510000026207405419760
  INN: 2923104330.

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