Preliminary investigations by the UN Human Rights Office have found that the children’s hospital destroyed in Kiev was hit directly by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

Danielle Bell, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said this on Tuesday.

She said specialists have reached this conclusion after analysing video footage and directly examining damage on site.

She called it “one of most egregious attacks we have seen since the onset of the invasion”.

Staff brought young patients to safety in the bunker shortly before the attack on Monday, she said. Otherwise, the number of victims would have been significantly higher.

She said two people died in the attack.

All 600 of the hospital’s young patients had been transferred to other health facilities.

The hospital, where many children with cancer and other serious illnesses were treated, was badly damaged and could no longer be used without extensive repairs, she said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Kiev showed the situation on the ground on X.

It has counted almost 1,900 attacks on hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, ambulances and similar targets since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to universally applicable international humanitarian law, such healthcare facilities may not be attacked, the International Committee of the Red Cross has often said on X.