The Whole World Is Watching

 For Ukraine

 

Chicago recorded this song in 1968, which includes a chant by protesters at the Democratic convention held there. Somehow, it seems to fit the events of 2022 as well. 

The slaughter of defenseless innocents, the murder of a nation, is horrible beyond the power of words to express. I was keeping up with the war news night and day for the first two weeks; then I had to take a break from it - a luxury no Ukrainian has, I am well aware. A few piddling projects here at home have occupied my time since then - between which, I weep for Ukraine, I rage at the rampant evil, I gnash my teeth at the nuclear standoff, the moral dilemma. Maybe you do, too. 

I have no power to change anything. All I can do is witness to the truth here on my little blog. It may do no one any good, but -- we are all witnesses to this enormous crime. That is our moral duty in this dark hour of human history, if we can do nothing else.

The whole world is watching.  

And we will not forget.

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From Radio Free Europe - "Who Will Bring Back Our Children?":

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Screen capture from CNN.  Click to enlarge.

The Guardian reports:  Mariupol: Russia accused of bombing theatre and swimming pool sheltering civilians.  Excerpt:

Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of further atrocities in the besieged city of Mariupol, including an airstrike on a theatre where hundreds of displaced people were believed to have been sheltering and a strike on a swimming pool where pregnant women and young children had gathered. Russian forces were also accused of shelling of a convoy of cars of civilians fleeing the city.

Mariupol has been facing a humanitarian catastrophe for days, and Russia continued to rain down fire on it and other Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, even as the two sides projected optimism over efforts at peace talks to negotiate an end to the fighting.

There was no immediate confirmation of numbers of deaths or injuries in what the Mariupol city council said was a “bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding.” “We don’t know if there are any survivors,” one witness said. “The bomb shelter is also covered with debris … there are both adults and children there.”

Later Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of Donetsk regional administration, claimed Russians had also targeted the Neptune swimming pool. “Now there are pregnant women and women with children under the rubble there,” he said in a post on Telegram. “It is impossible to establish the number of casualties from these strikes.”

A witness who posted a video of the aftermath of the attack said the pool had been destroyed and efforts were under way to rescue one pregnant woman trapped in the rubble. . . .

Ukraine’s ministry of defence has described Mariupol as the worst front of the war. Mass graves have been dug on the outskirts of the city and the bodies of men, women and children have been left on the streets. More than 400,000 of its inhabitants are either without or with dwindling access to running water, food and medical supplies.

Local officials have said more than 2,500 have been killed. But the reality is that, because of the shelling, the dead cannot be counted.

Ukrainian officials also accused Russian forces of shelling a convoy of cars of civilians fleeing the city, wounding at least five people, including a child.

Local officials shared photos and videos of the aftermath of the alleged attack. “Heavy artillery of the enemy forces fired on a convoy of civilians moving along the highway towards Zaporizhzhia,” the governor of the region, Oleksandr Starukh, said in an online post. . . .

Officials have told families to leave their dead outside in the streets because holding funerals is too dangerous.

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From Radio Free Europe - Elderly couple shot to death by Russian tank:

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