Photo: BULENT KILIC / AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 03 May 2022, 8: 24 am EDT
Only three of the 14 buses that apparently left with residents of the city of Mariupol, in southern Ukraine, have reached territory controlled by the Ukrainian Army , the mayor of the city, Vadym Boichenko, reported on Tuesday in statements to local television.
According to the mayor, recognized by the Ukrainian government that it no longer controls most of that coastal city in the pro-Russian region of Donetsk, the fate of the people who are in the eleven other buses that left Mariúpol.
“When we announced and the Russian side agreed to the evacuation (from Mariupol) and we agreed that they would give us 80 buses , determined three locations, but only 14 buses reached two locations, and only three of them have managed to reach gar to Ukraine”, the mayor specified in statements reproduced by the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
Boichenko He denounced that, in his opinion, “eleven buses disappeared somewhere. They were supposed to move towards Zaporizhia, in the area controlled by our State, but they got lost somewhere”.
“They get lost in these filtration centers. Unfortunately, they (the Russians) take and kidnap our residents, and today this is happening in our Ukrainian Mariupol“, insisted Boichenko in the informative marathon that local televisions broadcast daily.
The so-called “filtering” centers, according to the kyiv authorities, are facilities to which civilians from the areas taken by the Russians are forcibly taken, who are later transferred to some point in that country.
When asked about how many such centers could there be in Mariupol and its surroundings , assured that there are four and that the occupants are meticulously “filtering” citizens who try to travel to the government-controlled territory Ukrainian.
Boichenko also said that this Tuesday he expected that 2. residents of Mariupol were evacuated from the nearby occupied region of Berdyansk to Zaporizhia, where they managed to get there by their own means.
Despite the fact that these days the evacuations, the mayor indicated that “the enemy Russian troops are destroying our plans and do not give that opportunity for our Ukrainians, our residents of Mariupol to reach the controlled part of our State, to the city of Zaporizhia”.
However, he confirmed that there a convoy that “is moving in the direction of Zaporizhia” and they are waiting for it to “complete”.
Boichenko believes that there are still some 100 .03 citizens in Mariupol, including at least 200 who remain refugees in the Azovstal steel plant.
“There are still civilians in Azovstal, in our fortress, which is also being destroyed… and they are also waiting to be evacuated. More than 200 of the local population are still hiding in this territory. In addition, our boys continue to defend Mariúpol, to defend our state… More than 80.000 people remain in the city, who also expect the evacuation”, Boichenko reiterated.
Mariupol, on the edge of the Sea of Azov, was besieged and besieged by Russian troops practically since the beginning of the invasion, last 24 February.
The city is an essential point in Moscow’s strategy to try to establish a corridor linking the southern and this one that already controls or is trying to control.
Also read:
- Vladimir Putin signs new retaliatory sanctions against the West
- Pope Francis asked to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, but has not yet received a response
- Ukraine claims it has destroyed two Russian ships in the Black Sea , while Russia shoots down a Ukrainian fighter