MYKOLAIV, Ukraine: Hospitals came under fire overnight in the port city of Mykolaiv in the south of Ukraine, including a cancer treatment centre and an eye clinic, an AFP reporter said Saturday.

The windows were blown out of the cancer treatment centre, where patients were undergoing chemotherapy and the doors damaged.

“They shot at the civilian areas, without any military objective,” said the hospital’s head, Dmytro Lagochev.

“There’s a hospital here, an orphanage and a ophthalmological clinic,” he said.

No patients or healthcare workers were in the cancer treatment centre at the time of the strikes, but there were an unspecified number of patients in the eye clinic, he said.

“We all spent the night in the cellar, everyone was shaking. The patients were terrified,” said the clinic’s chief, Kasimira Rilkova.

In the Ingulski neighbourhood, there was no heating and many residents have been forced to leave.