Besieged and bombarded for a month, plunged into a critical humanitarian situation, will the approximately 160,000 remaining inhabitants of Mariupol see help arriving on Saturday, April 2? The International Committee of the Red Cross must again try to obtain security guarantees to organize a humanitarian convoy to the city, after having given up on Friday.
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The NGO hopes to secure the passage of civilians to Zaporizhia, located more than 200 km from Mariupol, and deliver water, food and medicine. Why is it still pending and how did some local people still manage to flee? Here’s what we know about the situation.
What is the objective of the Red Cross?
For a month and the beginning of the siege of Mariupol, there has been no lack of attempts to supply the inhabitants and help them to flee. They experienced what looked like a breakthrough on Wednesday evening, with the announcement by the Russian Ministry of Defense of a local ceasefire from 10 a.m. Thursday morning. the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which claims its neutrality in all fields of war, played a role in this agreement: the Russian ministry affirmed it on Wednesday and thehe Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said she had heard the news from the NGO.
The objective of the ICRC is to“deliver equipment and facilitate the exit of people wishing to leave the city” to bring them to the city of Zaporizhia, explained Alyona Synenko, one of his spokespersons, to franceinfo. The presence of the Red Cross “as a neutral intermediary” would offer “additional protection” residents fleeing the city “reminding all parties of the civilian and humanitarian nature of this operation”explains the ICRC in its press release on Friday evening.
In this text, the ICRC explains that its team is “consisting of three vehicles and nine staff members”. She was to return from Mariupol accompanied by 45 buses sent by the Ukrainian government to transport the inhabitants. Thursday, a member of the IARC on the spot, quoted on the site of the NGO (in English)asserted that two trucks “filled with food, water and medicine” were to accompany them. But according to the New York Times, their presence was finally refused by Russia. The press release published Friday evening does not mention it.
Why is this convoy blocked?
“The Red Cross team had to return to Zaporizhia on Friday, the current arrangements and conditions making the intervention impossible”, the IARC announced on Friday evening. Without expressing specific grievances, the organization recalled the need “that the parties comply with the agreements provided for and provide the necessary security conditions and guarantees”.
Contacted by franceinfo, Alyona Synenko refused on Saturday to detail the factors that had prevented the operation the day beforejustifying this refusal by the sensitive nature of the negotiations. Jeudi, she listed in advance the many points that needed to be clarified, and were not yet: “Which roads? At what time? For how many people?”
“We are talking about dangerous areas where there has been intense fighting. Very concrete agreements are needed so that the road is not mined. There must be very clear instructions for the military.”
Alyona Synenko, spokesperson for the Red Crossat franceinfo
On Friday, a man who fled Mariupol by his own means told France Télévisions that he had seen about fifteen buses from the Red Cross convoy blocked on the road, without knowing the reason for this blockage. Another resident, who arrived in his car outside any humanitarian corridor, showed the impact on his windshield of stones thrown by the explosion of a shell, attesting that strikes continue to fall in the region.
How did some civilians manage to flee?
Friday evening, while the Red Cross deplored the cancellation of its convoy, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced in a video posted online that 3,071 people had managed to flee Mariupol during the day. According to Releasethe municipality of Zaporizhia claims the arrival of 2,000 to 3,000 people every day from the areas attacked by Russia.
These refugees, filmed by France 2 on Friday, reached Zaporijia in their car or in buses, chartered by volunteers, parallel to the operation of the CIRC. Some explain that they left Mariupol on foot before finding a vehicle. Others tell of the many roadblocks of Russian soldiers who stood in their way, but which they managed to cross, at the cost of searches and thefts.
But the 3,000 people mentioned by Volodymyr Zelensky do not all come directly from the besieged city, on the other hand specified Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk: “771 of them came from Mariupol”to which were added 42 buses loaded with inhabitants of the city but leaving from Berdiansk, a city controlled by the Russian army.
These counts underline however that the operation of the Red Cross, if it succeeds, will not save all the inhabitants of Mariupol, but only those who find a place in the fifty buses which must accompany it, or who manage to follow the convoy with their vehicle.