Mariupol: only 3 of 14 buses with evacuees have reached Zaporizhzhia - Mayor
Mariupol: only 3 of 14 buses with evacuees have reached Zaporizhzhia - Mayor
IRYNA BALACHUK — TUESDAY, 3 MAY 2022, 14:18
Only 3 buses out of the 14 with residents of Mariupol were able to reach territory controlled by Ukraine. The fate of the people in the remaining 11 buses is unknown; more than a thousand city residents are still awaiting evacuation.
Source: The Mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, on air during the national 24/7 newscast
Quote from Boichenko: "When we announced and the Russian side agreed to the evacuation, giving us 90 buses, we identified three pick-up locations. However, only 14 buses arrived at two locations, and only 3 of those have reached Ukrainian-controlled territory. We don’t know the whereabouts of 11 buses, which were supposed to move in the direction of Zaporizhzhia, to the Ukrainian-controlled part of our state, but they got lost somewhere. They are often lost in "filtration centres".
Details: According to the mayor, there are currently four such "filtration centres" in Mariupol, and the occupiers are very meticulous in filtering Ukrainians.
Boichenko said that all those connected in any way with the state service or the municipal service are usually imprisoned for 2 weeks or 2 months. People who have already got out of prison say that 10-15 people were forced into a 2 x 3-metre cell. People there are unable to sit down, they don’t have food, and are given only water. They are taken to the toilet once a day and tortured.
Boichenko added that on 2 May, 2,000 Mariupol residents were waiting to be evacuated, leaving for occupied Berdiansk in the Zaporizhzhia region on their own. But the occupiers ruined their plans and did not allow people to leave.
Also, as of the morning of 3 May, the people who left Mariupol on 2 May have not yet reached Zaporizhzhia. The evacuation is still going on, the column is moving in the direction of Zaporizhzhia.
According to Boichenko, there are still more than 100,000 residents in Mariupol who are also waiting to be evacuated, including more than 200 people waiting on the territory of the Azovstal plant.
