Ukraine aims to get supplies into Mariupol, evacuate more people
March 15, 2022
LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukraine will make a new attempt to deliver supplies to civilians trapped in the encircled city of Mariupol on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
She made her announcement as Vitaliy Koval, the governor of the northern region of Rivne, said the death toll from a Russian air strike on a television tower in his region on Monday had risen to at least 19.
Moscow on Monday allowed the first convoy of civilians to escape Mariupol, but a senior presidential aide said Russia had again blocked a humanitarian aid convoy trying to reach the city with supplies.
Obtaining safe passage for aid to reach Mariupol and for civilians to leave has been Kyiv’s main demand at several rounds of talks. Previous attempts at a local ceasefire in the area have failed.
Vereshchuk said a convoy with humanitarian supplies would head for Mariupol on Tuesday.
“On the way back it will pick up women and children,” she said.
Civilians have been trapped in the southern port city by Russian shelling for more than two weeks and have been without heating, electricity and running water for most of this time, the Ukrainian authorities say.
A convoy of at least 160 cars left the city on Monday, local officials said, but many more residents remain in Mariupol. Russia says it does not target civilians.
More than 2,500 residents have been killed in Mariupol since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, a Ukrainian official said on Monday.
Ukraine hoped altogether to open nine “humanitarian corridors” on Tuesday, Vereshchuk she said.
The regional governor of Sumy in eastern Ukraine Sumy governor said the evacuation of civilians was again under way in his region.
(Reporting By Natalia Zinets andPavel Polityuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)