MARIUPOL MAYOR PLEADS FOR ALL CIVILIANS TO BE EVACUATED, SAYS 160,000 PEOPLE TRAPPED

Mon 28 March 2022:

Around 160,000 civilians are trapped in Mauripol, the mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city said on Monday.

“Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people in Mariupol. The figure is over 100,000. According to our estimates, around 160,000 civilians are in the city,” Vadym Boychenko said on local television.

He described the Russian military’s actions as a “genocide of people in Mariupol.”

Vadym Boychenko warned that the largely-destroyed city in southern Ukraine is on the verge of an even more appalling humanitarian catastrophe.

He stressed that around 160,000 civilians remained trapped in the city, without power, running water, and with little food or medicine.

Twenty-six buses were waiting to evacuate civilians but Russian forces had not agreed to give them safe passage, he claimed.

The Russians promised to open a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol but they are the ones actually preventing it, Boychenko added.

At least 1,151 civilians have been killed and 1,824 injured in Ukraine since Russia launched war on its neighbor in Feb. 24, according to the UN, which has said that the true figure is likely far higher.

More than 3.86 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries, with millions more displaced inside the country, according to the UN refugee agency.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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