Russia prevented evacuation of Ukrainian civilians from Mariupol, says local official

An attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol was “prevented” on Saturday by Russian troops who control much of that southeastern city of Ukraineindicated a deputy of the mayor’s office.

According to the official, Petro Andryushchenko, some 200 inhabitants of Mariupol went to the place from which they were to be evacuated, but were “dispersed” by the Russian military.

Some of them, he added, were forced onto buses that took them to Dokuchaievsk, a Russian-occupied town 80 km north of Mariupol.

“People had no right to get out of the buses,” he reported, specifying that the Russians attributed the change in itinerary “to shots fired by (Ukrainian) nationalists in the area.

“Once again, the Russians have prevented an evacuation,” Andryushchenko lashed out.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in the morning that an attempt would be made during the day to “evacuate women, children and the elderly” from Mariupol to Zaporizhia, about 200 km to the northwest.

But he warned that Russian forces could organize a parallel evacuation corridor, this time to Russia.

“Be careful,” he stressed. “Do not succumb to deception and provocation.”

After almost two months of siege and bombardment, much of Mariupol, a strategic industrial port on the Sea of ​​Azov, was occupied by Russian troops, but Ukrainian soldiers remain entrenched in the kilometric tunnels of the Azovstal steel plant.

Source: Elcomercio

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