© Cedoc Profile
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stated that it was “impossible” to proceed with the evacuation yesterday of thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the port city in southern Ukraine besieged and bombed for weeks by Russian troops, and that it will try today.
“The ICRC team, consisting of three vehicles and nine people, did not reach Mariupol or facilitate the safe passage of civilians today,” the ICRC said in a statement.
“They will try once more to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol on Saturday,” he added. The Committee also specified that the team had to return to Zaporizhia, located more than 200 kilometers away.
For “the operation to work, it is essential that the parties respect the agreements and offer the necessary security conditions and guarantees,” the organization said.
Among the demands is a respected ceasefire and that the humanitarian convoy can safely pass through the various military blockades.
“It’s a complex thing,” spokesman Watson said. There is no plan B, time is running out for the population of Mariupol who desperately need assistance and leave the city if they want to”.
Previous attempts to evacuate civilians from this city have failed. It is estimated that 160,000 people remain trapped in it in deplorable conditions.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, there are still more than 100,000 civilians in Mariupol, without medical supplies, who have not reached the city for 36 days, and the evacuation would face great risks.
“In some regions, the humanitarian corridors do not work. We appreciate the international support of the countries and organizations that bring humanitarian aid, but we need more because of the number of attacks,” said Oleksii Iaremenko, deputy minister of the Ukrainian government.
For his part, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushchenko, stated that it is “very dangerous” to even leave Mariupol. “The city is closed and it is very dangerous to leave it with personal transport,” he said on his Telegram account.
According to the mayor’s aide, Russian forces on Thursday prevented even a small amount of humanitarian assistance from reaching residents, saying there was no planned “humanitarian corridor.”
The ICRC spokesman, Ewan Watson, had warned early yesterday that it was not certain that the evacuations might take place. “If and when it happens, the ICRC’s role as a neutral intermediary will be to direct the convoy from Mariupol to another city in Ukraine,” he told reporters in Geneva.