Ukrainian President warns worse atrocities may emerge, after hundreds of civilian bodies were found
An evacuation convoy heading to the besieged city of Mariupol was turned back by Russian forces, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Tuesday.
The convoy of seven buses was accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and had been held up Monday in Manhush, a Russian-held town to the west of Mariupol, Vereshchuk said.
“Despite the promises of their leadership, the (Russian) occupying forces do not allow anyone to go to Mariupol,” Vereshchuk said in a statement on Telegram.
“The occupiers blocked representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Manhush. They were released last night after negotiations and sent to Zaporizhzhia,” she added.
The ICRC delegation set off on its journey from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol last Saturday, an ICRC press officer told CNN.
Vereshchuk said a total of seven humanitarian corridors are planned for Tuesday around Ukraine, and that a convoy of seven buses was on its way from Manhush to nearby Berdiansk, accompanied by the ICRC.
Some context: Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Monday his city was “on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” with over 100,000 people still requiring evacuation.
Boichenko said no evacuation buses had yet reached Mariupol, despite agreements between Russia and Ukraine to open humanitarian corridors. Some residents, he said, had managed to reach the nearby Russian-held city of Berdiansk in private cars, but added that the route was “very difficult and intermittent.”
