A road used to evacuate civilians from Mariupol was “mined”, the International Red Cross said on Monday (March 7th), after the failure of two attempts to set up a humanitarian corridor from this port besieged by Russia, in southeastern Ukraine.
Quoting a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who are in Mariupol, Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations, explained that “they were ready yesterday (Sunday) despite the fact that what constituted the agreement was not entirely clear. And as soon as they reached the first checkpoint, they realized that the route they were shown was actually mined.”
Regarding the humanitarian corridors, “the problem or the challenge is to bring the two parties to an agreement that is concrete, workable and precise”, explains Dominik Stillhart. Stating that “we have been talking to them for days and days to bring them to an agreement specific enough so that it can then be implemented”.
Since Saturday, Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of violating the conditions of the evacuation.
The Russian army announced the opening on Monday of several humanitarian corridors and the establishment of local ceasefires to evacuate civilians from the Ukrainian cities of Kharkhiv, Kiev, Mariupol and Sumy, plagued by heavy fighting. Similarly, Moscow specifies that it has transmitted this information to the structures of the UN, the OSCE and the ICRC.