Reuters staff member is missing from Kramatorsk hotel hit by Russian strike

A Reuters staff member is missing from a hotel in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, that was hit by a Russian strike on Saturday night.

The news agency had a six-person crew staying at the hotel as part of its team covering the war in Ukraine.

“The Hotel Sapphire in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, housing a team from Reuters, was hit by a strike on Saturday, August 24, 2024. One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” a Reuters spokesperson said in a statement sent to CNN.

Three other colleagues have been accounted for, the news agency said, adding that it is working closely with authorities in Kramatorsk to “urgently” obtain “more information.”

The Reuters crew managed to file video on Sunday morning of the extensive damage done to the hotel., showing emergency services searching through huge piles of rubble with torches. Footage filmed inside the hotel showed several destroyed hotel rooms.

The video also showed extensive damage to the hotel’s roof.

Kramatorsk has often been the target of Russian shelling since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022. It remains one of the largest cities under Ukrainian control in the country’s besieged east.

In April last year, Russian forces carried out a missile strike on Kramatorsk’s railway station that was being used to shelter civilians fleeing the fighting.

More than 50 people, including several children, died in that one attack, which was called “an apparent war crime” by Human Rights Watch and SITU Research.