Kiev: The Ukrainian government has said that in the last two days, 60,000 people were evacuated from the besieged region of Sumy and 20,000 others from Kiev amid the ongoing war.
In a video address on Thursday, Iryna Vereschuk, Minister of the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, said: “We have evacuated more than 60,000 people from Sumy, Trostyanets, and Krasnopillya to Poltava over the last two days.
“We managed to evacuate around 3,000 people from the city of Izyum to the city of Lozova in the Kharkiv region. Aid was delivered to Izyum: medication, food, and water. Over 100 tonnes.
“Over the last day, around 20,000 people were evacuated from the towns of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, and Vorzel in the Kyiv region.
“More than 100 tonnes of aid was also delivered to Enerhodar.”
However, no evacuation could take place from the humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia due to constant shelling by Russian forces, the Ukrayinska Pravda newspaper quoted the Minister as saying.
Calling the situation in Mariupol a “humanitarian catastrophe”, the Minister further said that Russia has constantly hampered the planned evacuation of civilians from the strategic southern port city.
“The worst situation is in Mariupol-Zaporizhzhia. No one has been evacuated. Not a single drop of water has reached people who are exhausted from thirst.
“300,000 people today are suffering from lack of water, cold and hunger. The aggressor’s revenge is not allowing us to save them,” Vereschuk said.
She also claimed that currently there was only one road from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, via Orikhiv and Polohy, as all others have been destroyed or mined.
“Every day, when our humanitarian cargo sets off for the road, the aggressor fires at the cargo, fires in the direction of movement, not allowing it to pass even a kilometre.”
On Wednesday, Mariupol witnessed one of the worst attacks since Russia started its war on February 24 when a children and maternity hospital was shelled, killing three people and injuring 17 others.
Ms Kalinga