© KEYSTONE/MICHAEL BUHOLZER
Two convoys of at least 80 buses were able to leave the city of Sumy, 350 km from kyiv, to evacuate many civilians to Loubny, in the center of the country. The device, approved by the parties, was facilitated Tuesday followingnoon by the Red Cross.
The convoys left at 3:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. in Ukraine), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. The organization has worked with the Ukrainian Red Cross for this humanitarian corridor with the parties.
“We have hundreds of civilians,” said an ICRC official present in Sumy. The organization wants this device to be the first of many other safe evacuations of civilians. And she also recalled that the responsibility to guarantee these corridors is that of the parties.
Earlier, an ICRC spokesperson repeated that similar attempts in Mariupol had repeatedly failed. Hundreds of thousands of people lack food and humanitarian assistance is still not entering the city, he said.
