RED CROSS PREPARES FRESH EVACUATION EFFORT IN MARIUPOL

Sat 02 April 2022:

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians trapped in the besieged port city of Mariupol are facing a “dire” situation as fighting rages, with many living underground to escape the shelling.

The port city has been under bombardment by Russian forces for weeks, and the mayor says up to 170,000 people are trapped without power and with limited access to food and other supplies.

The city has faced weeks of ferocious Russian shelling, with at least 5,000 residents killed, according to local authorities, and the estimated 160,000 who remain face shortages of food, water and electricity.

“We have managed to rescue 6,266 people, including 3,071 people from Mariupol,” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said in a video address early Saturday.

Giving details of Friday’s evacuation efforts along humanitarian corridors, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 42 buses carrying Mariupol residents had departed from the city of Berdiansk, 70 kilometres (44 miles) southwest, while another 12 had left Melitopol with local residents on board.

Meanwhile, The International Committee of the Red Cross said its team headed to Mariupol to conduct an evacuation effort was forced to turn back Friday after “arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed”. It said it would try again Saturday.

Seven corridors agreed from besieged southern areas: deputy PM

Seven humanitarian corridors are planned to evacuate civilians from the besieged cities of Mariupol and Berdyansk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on her official Telegram channel.

The move comes a day after a convoy led my the Red Cross was forced to return as it said conditions to proceed were “impossible”.

A video later posted on social media by Mariupol’s city council shows a convoy of buses on the move: “A new evacuation convoy of 10 buses led by the SES and the Red Cross left Zaporizhzhia for Berdyansk,” read the post referring to the country’s State Emergency Service.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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