UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has announced the continuation of the operation to evacuate civilians who are hiding in Mariupol destroyed by Russian troops.
Guterres made the corresponding statement at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Interfax-Ukraine writes.
According to him, earlier the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross managed to successfully carry out two operations to take out civilians hiding at Azovstal.
"In the first convoy, completed on May 3, civilians were evacuated from the Azovstal plant, as well as 59 people from neighboring areas... In the second operation, completed last night, more than 320 civilians were evacuated from Mariupol and nearby areas," Guterres said.
The UN Secretary General stressed that the third operation is now ongoing. He would not give details to avoid a breakdown in possible success.
Earlier, the Ukrainian edition of Ukrinform wrote that UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said today that a convoy of buses left for Mariupol to evacuate people on Friday morning, May 6.
"Today, now, the convoy is moving to Azovstal, where it should be tomorrow morning. We hope to take those who remained in this hell and bring them to a safe place," he said.
And the British edition of SkyNews writes with reference to the UN Humanitarian Representative Saviano Abreu that a new operation is being carried out in Mariupol to ensure a safe corridor for the evacuation of civilians.
He did not specify the details of the evacuation operation, saying only that it was being carried out with representatives of the Red Cross.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on Wednesday, May 4, the Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk announced the successful evacuation of 344 people as part of a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol.
And on Tuesday, May 3, more than 100 people arrived in Zaporizhzhia, who were the first to evacuate from Azovstal as part of an operation supported by the UN and the Red Cross.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.