Ukraine official says 1,300 people are still trapped in the Mariupol theater bombed by Russian forces

• A Ukrainian official says 1,300 people are trapped in the Mariupol theater bombed by Russian forces.
• The official said 130 people have been rescued from the theater so far.

A Ukrainian official said 130 people were rescued from a theater in Mariupol that was bombed by Russian forces, but said that 1,300 people still remained trapped.

"I have stressed on the fact that 130 people have already been evacuated from the drama theater in Mariupol destroyed by the occupiers, but 1,300 people are still in the basements," Ukrainian parliament's commissioner for human rights Lyudmyla Denisova said in an interview on Friday.

Russian forces on Wednesday bombed the theater, which Ukrainian officials said was serving as a shelter for civilians, including children.

Satellite images showed 'Children' written twice in Russian outside the theater.

The number of causalities and fatalities is currently unknown, and Mariupol's city council shared on Telegram that the theater suffered "severe damage."

Officials said on Thursday that survivors began to emerge from the wreckage.

"The bomb shelter withstood," Ukrainian parliament member Sergiy Taruta wrote on Facebook. "The debris is being dismantled, people are coming out alive!"

Denisova said in her Friday interview that Ukraine and Russia agreed on seven humanitarian corridors, which have seen 173,000 citizens evacuated from war-torn cities like Mariupol and Sumy.

She said that 70 percent of homes in Mariupol have been damaged since Russia invaded Ukraine last month — 30 percent of them beyond repair. She added that some people have been sheltering in their basements for over two weeks now.

Denisova said that humanitarian conditions in the suburbs of Kyiv are worsening, though it's not as bad as it is in Mariupol. She said the situation is also difficult in the region of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city.

Ukraine has said that Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure as its advance on the eastern European country remains largely stalled.

US and Western officials have slammed Russia for attacks on civilians, with President Joe Biden delivering on Wednesday his harshest condemnation yet of Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him "a war criminal."

Meanwhile, the International Court of Justice ordered Russia on Wednesday to immediately stop its attack on Ukraine as it investigates claims of genocide.

This came after the International Criminal Court announced earlier in March it would investigate potential war crimes committed by Russia.

Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.