Vereshchuk: Russians captured evacuation column near Mariupol

KATERYNA TYSCHENKO - TUESDAY, 22 MARCH, 2022, 18:32

Representatives of the so-called "Donetsk People’s Republic" (DNR) seized an evacuation column and State Emergency Service (SES) officers when they were following an agreed route near Mangush, close to Mariupol.

Source: Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, on Ukrainian TV channels

Quote: "Today on the corridor, which we have tried to open again, there are a column of buses and SES employees captured by representatives of the DNR. They are standing near Mangush, have stopped there now. We are trying our best to pull them out."

"This is an agreed corridor, we have agreed it with the Red Cross, and now people are being held hostage. It is reported that the vehicles will be taken away, and people may or may not be let free."

Details: According to Vereshchuk, more than 100,000 people want to leave Mariupol, but cannot.

"There is no corridor as such. And those [corridors] that exist are only for cars and for those who can walk. Imagine, people will have to walk 10, 20 or more kilometres to the place where we would be able to put them on a bus and take them to Zaporizhzhia in a safer way," she said.

Vereshchuk has added that it is still difficult to estimate the scale of the catastrophe in the Mariupol Drama Theater shelled by the occupiers because rescuers cannot get there due to constant shelling.

"However, there is well-known information that people could have escaped on their own, at least some of them," she added.

Previously: On Tuesday morning, Vereshchuk reported that for evacuating people from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia this day, there would be three routes, including Mangush community – Zaporizhzhia.