Ukraine announced on Saturday morning (5) that it will postpone the withdrawal of civilians from the city of Mariupol, due to a breach of the temporary ceasefire agreement by the Russian army. The humanitarian corridor, announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense, would take place in the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, lasting five hours: from 9 am to 4 pm, local time (4 am to 11 am, in Brazil). In this interval, the Ukrainians could pass in predetermined routes, with the guarantee of interruption of the firing by the Russians.
“Due to the fact that the Russian side does not respect the truce and continues the bombing of both Mariupol itself and its surroundings, for security reasons the evacuation of the population has been postponed,” wrote the Mariupol prefecture in its Telegram account.
“We ask all Mariupol citizens to leave (the meeting and collection points) and go to the shelters”, the message guided.
The mayor’s office of the strategic port city, which has a population of nearly 450,000, said “negotiations are under way with Russia to establish a ceasefire and ensure a safe humanitarian corridor.”
The evacuation of the civilian population from Mariupol, besieged for the past five days by Russian forces, was initially scheduled to begin at 9 am (local time). The announcement, made by the Russian Defense Ministry, was postponed until two hours later, according to the local city hall.
The humanitarian corridor would run from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, cities some 200 kilometers away. “It is strictly forbidden to deviate from the route,” the Ukrainian authorities had said.
Five minutes before the new scheduled time, the prefecture said it was still awaiting confirmation of the temporary ceasefire along the entire evacuation route, as there was still fighting in some places, such as in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, Irina Vereshchuk, explained that the mediator to establish the humanitarian corridors and guarantee the humanitarian ceasefire was the Red Cross, and that about 200,000 people would be evacuated, according to the Ukrainian news agency Unian.
#Temporary #ceasefire #generates #discord #Russia #Ukraine #understand #agreement