The Ukrainian minister for Donetsk and Lugansk, Irina Vereschuk, announced this Saturday the opening of new humanitarian corridors as well as the sending of a new humanitarian aid convoy to the besieged city of Mariupol in a new effort to remove the civilian population from the front from the east of the country.
Most of these new runners will end in or around the capital Kiev, starting from Pologi, Gostomel, Mikulichi, Andrivka, Makarov, Borodianka, Trostyanets, Sumy, Lebedin, Konotop, Velyka Pisarevka and Krasnopol.
The Russian side on Friday opened ten humanitarian corridors from Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol to Russia, as well as one through the territories controlled by the Kiev authorities to the west to Poland, Moldova and Romania. Of the 10 proposed routes, the Ukrainian side agreed only two – in the Kiev and Mariupol directions.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities also announced four more routes from the cities of Izyum, Energodar, Volnovakha and in the direction of Zitomir, which were approved by the Russian authorities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed last weekend the failure of the second attempt to evacuate civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol has failed due to the absence of a “detailed and functional” agreement between the parties to the conflict : the Ukrainian forces defending the city and the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, pro-Russian.
The Russian Army had denounced this Friday that the Ukrainian forces that are defending Mariúpol have destroyed all the entrance and exit accesses, so the city is now disconnected from the outside world.
“All the bridges and accesses to the city have been destroyed, the main roads have been mined by the (Ukrainian) nationalists and armed men are roaming the streets opening fire indiscriminately, which is forcing the civilian population to stay in their homes,” said the head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Mikhail Mizintsev.
The Donetsk press service has confirmed that there is still a trickle of evacuees, approximately 200 per day. “From 8 a.m. on March 11 to 8 a.m. on March 12, 217 people, including 25 children, were evacuated from Mariupol and its suburban settlements to Bezymennoe in Novoazovsky district,” according to the note published on Saturday. by separatist forces and collected by Interfax. About 400,000 people live in the city.
Since the beginning of the siege, Russia has repeatedly denounced the existence of members of ultra-right Ukrainian militias determined to boycott its efforts to defuse the situation.
On the other hand, and in a message published on its Telegram account, the Mariúpol City Council has assured that more than 1,500 residents of the city have died as a result of the twelve days of Russian attacks on the city.
“1,582 civilians of Mariupol were killed by the Russian occupation troops during the 12-day blockade of the city and the ruthless shelling of residential areas,” according to the City Council.