Civilians began to be evacuated this Tuesday from the Ukrainian city of Sumy, near the border with Russia, in a new attempt to establish humanitarian corridors so that people besieged by Russian bombing can get to safety.
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The aerial bombardments against this city located about 350 km northeast of Kiev, what a scene of violent fighting For several days, they killed 21 people – two of them children – on Monday night, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
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Shortly after 10 am local time, dozens of buses left Sumy for Lojvitsia, 150 km to the southwest, acting head of the regional government, Dmitry Lunin, said. Shortly before, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, warned that “the Russian side planned to disturb that corridor”, so that civilians could be forced to “take another itinerary, which is not coordinated [con las autoridades ucranianas] And it’s dangerous.”
“Let us evacuate people quietly. The whole world is watching!” He launched on this thirteenth day of the conflict, asking Russian troops to “stop their advance” during the humanitarian operation.
Hours later, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry accused Russia of not respecting the humanitarian corridor in Mariupol, a strategic port city in the south. “The enemy launched an attack exactly in the direction of the humanitarian corridor,” the ministry denounced on its Facebook page, stating that the Russian army “did not let children, women and elderly people leave the city.”
This Tuesday, Russia had announced a ceasefire to let the civilians of the big Ukrainian citieslike Kiev, can leave.
The situation is deteriorating every day and this Tuesday, the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, accused Western countries of not fulfilling their “promises”. “We have been listening to promises for 13 days. Thirteen days that they are telling us that they will help us (…) that there will be planes, that they will deliver them to us,” he declared in a video posted on Telegram.
“But the responsibility for all this also falls on those who have not been able to make a decision in the West for 13 days. On those who have not protected the Ukrainian sky from Russian assassins,” he added.
The launch of the humanitarian corridors was the focus of the third round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations on Monday, but on the ground, Russian forces continue to deploy around large cities, and in some cases bomb them, according to Ukrainian officials.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that civilians must be able to flee in any direction they choose and safe access to medical and humanitarian supplies must be guaranteed.
After months of amassing troops around the former Soviet republic, Putin ordered the invasion, claiming he wanted to protect the Russian-speaking population of the rebel territories in eastern Ukraine, who have been fighting Kiev since 2014.
The leader of The Kremlin calls for the demilitarization of Ukraine, a neutral status for the country now leaning towards the West and guarantees that it will never join NATO.
The main combat fronts in Ukraine
The Russian army is concentrated mainly on the fronts of Kiev, Mariúpol and Kharkov, the country’s second largest city in the northeast, the target of intense bombing and missile fire in recent days.
In Busha, at the gates of Kiev, the inhabitants were also desperately trying to leave the city. “There are people in every apartment, in every house. The most important thing is to get the children out. There are many children and women,” Anna said.
“The city is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. There is no gas, no water, no electricity, and food is starting to run out,” he said. Heavy fighting was also reported in the city of Izium (east), although the Russian troops beat a retreat, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.
For its part, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense stated that Russian General Vitali Guerassimov died near Kharkov, information that the Russian authorities did not confirm and that it was impossible to verify with an independent source. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), artillery shells damaged a medical and industrial nuclear research facility in Kharkov on Sunday, although no “consequence” was detected.
More than two million refugees due to conflict in Ukraine
On the ground, the conflict continues to worsen, giving rise to the fastest exodus recorded in Europe since the Second World War.
The war has already pushed more than 2 million people to take refuge in neighboring countriesespecially in Poland, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
journalists from AFP thousands of civilians were seen fleeing the fighting via an unofficial evacuation route from Irpin, a western suburb of Kiev, towards the capital. Children and the elderly were carried on rugs used as stretchers across a highway guarded by soldiers and volunteers.
Desperate, some abandoned cars and suitcases to get into crowded buses.
The latest United Nations balance puts the number of civilians killed by the invasion at 406, although these balances are surely well below the real figures of victims of this war.
This Tuesday, the German justice announced that it is investigating possible war crimes in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation in this regard last week and the United States indicated that it had “very credible” information about war crimes committed by Russia.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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