After earlier efforts were scuppered by ceasefire violations, the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and the city of Volnovakha have restarted on Sunday morning efforts to evacuate the civilian population via ‘green corridors’.
City officials have announced the evacuation efforts after a ceasefire was allegedly agreed upon with Russian-led forces surrounding the city where the humanitarian situation, according to aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF), is catastrophic with no electricity or water in civilian homes.
MSF’s emergency coordinator in Ukraine, Laurent Ligozat, stressed that it’s imperative that this humanitarian corridor is put in place very quickly after an earlier attempt on Saturday to allow civilians to leave by buses and private cars failed with both sides accusing the other of shelling.
Russians were accused of shelling even when civilians were forming the escape convoy while Moscow’s defense ministry accused the nationalists defending the city of exploiting citizens as a human shield.
In a separate evacuation effort on Sunday, Sergiy Gaiday, the head of the Lugansk regional administration, which is controlled by Kyiv, said they plan to organize a train to evacuate women, children, and the elderly from Lysychansk, near the frontline between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-backed separatists which control the entire southeast.
If Mariupol ends up captured by the Russian forces, they will control Ukraine’s entire Azov Sea coast, which would give them a landbridge to Russian-annexed Crimea as well as an important supply route and port.
Meanwhile, the number of Ukrainian refugees was expected to reach 1.5 million on Sunday as Russia’s attack continues on its 11th day and Kyiv presses the West for further help and action, including more sanctions and weapons.
After meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Ukraine-Poland border, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he expected new sanctions and weapons for Ukraine in the coming days.
President Joe Biden is seeking $10 billion in emergency funding to respond to the Ukraine crisis but so far the US has said it would give Ukraine more weapons.
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