Several buses with inhabitants of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, besieged and bombed by Russian troops, arrived on Friday night in Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian city controlled by the Kiev army, according to journalists from the AFP agency on the spot.
According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, a total of about 3,000 people were rescued.
The buses carried inhabitants of Mariupol who managed to reach the city of Berdyansk, occupied by the Russian forces, where they were received by the humanitarian convoy, according to both residents and officials.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk confirmed the information in a video on Telegram: “As of today, while we are shooting this video, buses are already on their way, to take the inhabitants of Mariupol, 42 buses, to a safe place,” he said.
“We know how much they wait to be saved. Every day we will try again and again until they have the opportunity to leave the city and, above all, to live in peace,” he added.
On Thursday, Vereshchuk said that the Ukrainian government had started sending 45 buses to evacuate civilians from the port city after Russia announced a truce.
A team from the Red Cross was also scheduled to arrive in the city this Friday, but the International Committee of the organization (ICRC) reported that the group had to turn around since it was “impossible” to proceed with the evacuation.
The organization indicated in a statement that the conditions “made it impossible to continue” the team, consisting of three vehicles and nine members of the CRIC staff, whose mission was to escort buses with evacuees through a humanitarian corridor.
It is estimated that some 160,000 citizens have been living without basic services for more than a month in Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov that has become the main target of Russian troops in Ukraine due to its strategic position between the Crimean peninsula and the Dombas.
For the successful evacuation of citizens who wish to leave Mariupol voluntarily “it is essential that the parties respect agreements, provide the necessary conditions and guarantees of security,” the ICRC said, stressing its traditional role as a neutral intermediary in the conflict.
In Mariupol, where some of the attacks that human rights organizations denounce as possible war crimes have been perpetrated, water and food have been scarce for weeks, and there is no supply of electricity or heating.
A previous attempt to evacuate the port city in early March with ICRC mediation also failed, after hostilities escalated in the area and the route out of the town was interpreted to be unsafe.
(With information from AFP, EFE)
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