The evacuation of civilians is “very slow” in the besieged city of Mariupol and it has not been possible to set up three humanitarian corridors in the Kherson region of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereschuk.
“There is nothing to highlight in Mariupol. Everything is going very slow. On the Russian side, everything is very complicated, chaotic, slow and, of course, dishonest,” Vereschuk lamented in a statement on his Facebook account.
Thus, he stressed that the fact that “yesterday for the first time people went from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia directly (these are the four buses that left Mariupol yesterday) gives hope”.
In this regard, he apologized to the inhabitants of Mariupol who waited on Thursday to be evacuated. “The bombing started near the collection point, which forced the humanitarian corridor to be closed,” he explained.
In the Kherson region, three humanitarian corridors were not enabled either: “the occupants have not stopped the fire, so the corridors could not be opened,” Vereschuk said in the statement.
He also denounced that a “warlord” has taken as hostage the representative of Novovorontsovska, appointed chief of public transport at the state level, for the exchange of prisoners while he was holding talks with the Russian Army to organize humanitarian corridors.
“This was a mistake for which not only the specified defendant will be responsible, but also those who allow the capture of our civilians to exchange Russians for prisoners of war,” he said.
RISING REFUGEES
Ukrainians who have left their homes as a result of the Russian invasion number 12.7 million, including 5 million refugees in other countries and 7.7 million internally displaced persons on Ukrainian soil, as reported on Thursday by the United Nations (UN).
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) today raised the number of internally displaced persons to 7.7 million, 600,000 more than in its previous estimate on April 1, while the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) put the number of refugees at 5.08 million, 50,000 more than on Wednesday.
The figures assume that one-sixth of the Ukrainian population are internally displaced and more than a tenth refugees in other countries, an exodus that was not known on the European continent since the end of World War II.
According to IOM, at least 60 per cent of internally displaced persons in Ukraine are women and more than half of this group, especially in the east of the country, have indicated that they have problems finding food.
Obtaining cash is the main concern of these internally displaced persons, followed by access to medicines and medical equipment, according to the IOM study.
“A humanitarian ceasefire is crucial to enable aid delivery and access to communities that are now difficult to access,” said IOM Director General António Vitorino in a statement.
(With information from Europa Press)
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