The evacuation of the civilian population from Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, was postponed due to the breach of the ceasefire around the city and its surroundings “by the Russian side”, the City Council reported today.
“Because the Russian side does not respect the truce and continues the bombardment of both Mariupol itself and its surroundings, for security reasons, the evacuation of the population is postponed”wrote the consistory in its Telegram account.
“We ask all the citizens of Mariupol to leave (from the concentration and collection points) and go to the shelters”he added.
According to the Mayor’s Office of the strategic port city, which has almost 450,000 inhabitants, at the moment “negotiations are being carried out with Russia to establish a ceasefire and guarantee a safe humanitarian corridor.”
Initially the evacuation of the civilian population from Mariupolbesieged for the past five days by Russian forces, was to start at 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT), according to the announcement of the Russian Ministry of Defense, but was later delayed to 11:00 local time, according to the consistory. from the city.
Five minutes before the new scheduled time, the Mayor’s Office indicated that it was still waiting for confirmation of the temporary ceasefire along the entire evacuation route, since there was still fighting in some places, such as in the Zaporizhia region.
“At 10:55 local time, confirmation of the ceasefire was received only in the Donetsk region. Further down the road, fighting is taking place in the Zaporizhia region.”he indicated.
The chosen route for the humanitarian corridor was Mariupol-Nikolskoye-Rozovka-Pologi-Orekhov-Zaporiyia.
The humanitarian ceasefire announced by Russia also included the evacuation of the civilian population from Volnovakha, some 65 kilometers north of Mariupol.
The Ukrainian Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Irina Vereshchuk, explained that the mediator to establish the humanitarian corridors and guarantee the humanitarian ceasefire is the Red Cross, and that it was planned to evacuate some 200,000 people, according to the UNIAN agency.
“We do everything on our part to make the agreement (on humanitarian corridors) work. It is one of the main tasks today. We will see if we can advance in the negotiation process” with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a new video message before the postponement of the evacuation.
the mayor of MariupolVadim Boychenko, stated at dawn that the city was subject to the Russian blockade for the fifth day.
In the early hours of Thursday, he assured that the city was on the verge of a “humanitarian catastrophe”, since Mariupol was left without electricity, water and heating due to constant bombing by the Russian Army.
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Source: Gestion
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