‘The nurse used the torch on her phone to do the op’: hospitals stripped of resources in Ukraine’s occupied territories

A premature baby in an incubator in a hospital in Zaporizhzhia. Organisations in Ukraine report an anecdotal rise in maternal and child mortalities. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Earlier this summer, the once bustling corridors of the district hospital in Hola Prystan, a city in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, were ominously quiet. At times, it was plunged into darkness during power cuts lasting hours.

Much of the hospital’s medical equipment and supplies had been stolen and redirected to the military, and many experienced staff had gone.