Russia has announced the opening as of this Thursday and for three days of a humanitarian corridor that allows the evacuation of civilians who are inside the Azovstal steelworks, in Mariúpol, as reported by the Ministry of Defense.
The Russian Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters has reported that the corridors will be opened on May 5, 6 and 7 between 05:00 GMT and 15:00 GMT for “humanitarian reasons”. In this time slot, “the Russian Armed Forces and the formations of the Donetsk People’s Republic unilaterally cease any hostility.”
The evacuation, assures Moscow, will take place following the direction that the civilians choose, either towards territories of the Russian Federationeither to areas controlled by the authorities of Kyiv. The mayor of the battered city, Vadym Boychenko, has said that some 200 civilians are trapped in the metallurgical plant.
This Tuesday they arrived at Zaporizhia (located on the Dnieper River) the 156 civilians evacuated from the city who subsisted for weeks in underground shelters.
It is the first large-scale rescue operation carried out with the agreement of the governments of Ukraine and Russia, with the collaboration of the UN and the support of the Red Cross. Mariúpol, which initially had a population of almost half a million inhabitants, has been practically razed to the ground.
In this context, the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchukhas announced the opening of four collection points for citizens on the outskirts of the besieged city to try to evacuate the more than 10,000 inhabitants that still remain in this city on the shore of the sea of Azovwithout water, electricity or basic products.
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