The death toll from Russia’s bombing of a school being used as a humanitarian aid point in the Ukrainian village of Komyshuvakha has risen to 55, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Saturday, after rescuers recovered nine more bodies from the rubble in the previous 24 hours.
The strike hit on the morning of Monday, 2 November. According to Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, known as the HUR, two Russian FAB-3000 guided bombs — three-tonne weapons fitted with guidance kits — struck the Dzherelo Gymnasium at about 9:45 a.m., just as local residents had gathered to collect their weekly humanitarian aid. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said nine more bombs then hit the shelter where people had taken cover.
Komyshuvakha is a front-line village in the Zaporizhzhia region, about 17 kilometres from the nearest Russian positions. Before the war it had around 5,000 residents; by 4 November, the acting regional governor said only about 200 remained. The school’s underground building had become the village’s shelter and aid point, handing out food every Monday, and the charity World Central Kitchen said the facility was a humanitarian and administrative centre for local people.
The toll has climbed in grim steps as rescuers worked through the rubble: 31 confirmed on 3 November, 42 on Thursday, 50 on Friday morning, 53 by Friday evening, and now 55. Informopedia reported on Wednesday, when the toll stood at 37, that dozens were still buried. Around 50 people are still listed as missing, and officials are taking DNA samples from relatives because some bodies cannot be identified visually. The search entered its sixth day on Saturday, continuing under the constant threat of repeat strikes.
Speaking at an interagency briefing when the toll stood at 53, Yuliia Barysheva, a spokesperson for the State Emergency Service in the Zaporizhzhia region, said: “At the moment, rescuers have already brought 53 bodies to the surface. Around another 50 people are considered missing. Search operations have not stopped.”
On Saturday, the HUR said it had identified the men it holds responsible: six Russian Su-34 pilots, including Captain Sergei Yeliseyev, and Colonel Fyodor Zubakov, the officer it says planned the strike as head of the fire-engagement group at the headquarters of Russia’s Dnepr military grouping. Four Su-34 fighter-bombers took part in the attack, according to the directorate.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the attack targeted Ukrainian military units around Komyshuvakha and two other settlements, and that up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen were killed. Among the dead are two rescue workers and a military medic who rushed to help the wounded, including rescuer Oleksii Sushchevskyi, 44. One woman, Olha, was found alive on Thursday after three days under the rubble, having been unreachable since the bombing.
Reuters has described the bombing as one of the deadliest strikes on civilians this year, and Ukrainian officials call it the deadliest Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia region since the full-scale invasion began. The naming of individual pilots matters beyond the battlefield: Kyiv has spent the war building war-crimes cases name by name, and public identification is the first step toward prosecution or sanctions, even when the men named are far beyond Ukraine’s reach. For the families still waiting at the edge of the rubble, though, the number that matters is simpler — around 50 people are still missing, and every day of digging can still change the toll.
The rising toll comes days before the United States, Ukraine and Russia are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on 10–11 November in a new push to end the war.
