Ukraine accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the port city devastated by Russian bombing.
The Russian government harbors about 5.21 people in a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, as reported seen on satellite images.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that 000.000 had been transferred from Ukraine to the territory controlled by Russia without any coordination with kyiv.
“We were all taken away by force”, says a refugee from Mariupol, now in Russia.
Some Ukrainian officials describe the Russian actions like “deportations” to “filtration camps”, which resembles the Russian war and n Chechnya.
At the end of the decade of 1990, thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.
It is an internationally recognized human rights abuse to that a warring party deports civilians to its territory.
Thousands trapped
While 140. civilians managed to escape from the besieged city of Mariupol, others 170. are still trapped, according to the local council.
The incessant Russian bombardment for more than three weeks has left the city in ruins, its terrified civilians hiding in basements, short of water, food and medicine.
The BBC cannot independently verify the numbers of civilians evacuated from Mariupol, or the number of dead victims.
Relatively few Mariupol civilians have fled through the humanitarian corridors established by both sides. Ukraine says Russian troops continued to shell evacuation routes, which were supposed to be safe.
In parts of Mariupol under Russian control, reports suggest starving civilians Thirsty and often sick, they have no choice but to head to the areas controlled by Moscow and to Russia itself.
Irina, one of the refugees, spoke to the BBC’s Wyre Davies via Zoom from a relative’s home in Russia.
She claims that Russian soldiers told her and other refugees in a bunker to leave, for their own safety. The building was on fire after being bombed.
They walked 4 km to a Russian checkpoint, and from there they were taken further east, into territory controlled by pro-Russian rebels from the Donetsk separatist region.
“Once there, you had to decide whether to leave to stay in the region or go to Russia”, he said.
“Some older people I know and whom I met at the concentration point did not know where they were going or why . They thought they could stay in Rostov for a couple of months… and then maybe come back to Mariúpol”.
“Instead, they were taken to Samara [al norte de Rostov, en el sur de Rusia]. They said that they had no idea what to do there, and that the accommodation there is only provided for two weeks”, he says.
By will and by force
The historical ties between Russia and Ukraine make many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. But it is unclear how many refugees from Mariupol have voluntarily gone to Russia.
The Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on 21 March that a long column of refugee vehicles had taken more than two hours to reach Bezimenne, a coastal town a 40 km east of Mariupol.
Around 5.000 refugees are housed there, in tents, a school and a club. The Russian Emergencies Ministry has sent aid and workers to the scene.
In the On the way, the Donetsk rebels detained civilians at checkpoints, took their fingerprints and photographed them.
“Your details are checked against a database of criminals escapees. One of the key problems is the shortage of SIM cards and not everyone has a mobile phone”, reported the Gazeta.
Russia denies that it is taking out to force the Ukrainians
of your country.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says that it “never helps to organize or carry out forced evacuations”, and has only helped in two evacuations: from Sumy, a besieged city in the north, to another territory controlled by Ukraine.
“This applies everywhere we work. We would not support any operation that goes against the will of the people and our principles”, said the ICRC.
Ukraine has urged the ICRC not to open an office in Rostov, which is reportedly being discussed with the Russian Red Cross.
kyiv says that could be used to legitimize deportations.
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