” At last ! “Congratulated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday evening. This weekend, an evacuation operation was carried out in the martyr city of Mariupol, where civilians and soldiers were trapped in the vast Azovstal steel complex. This operation is the first to succeed in Mariupol, after two months of siege and bombing of this strategic port near the Sea of Azov. After more than a day of uncertainty in Zaporijjia, which was awaiting the arrival of the convoy on Monday, the UN finally announced the “successful” evacuation of a hundred civilians from the besieged factory on Tuesday.
At the same time, the Russian military and pro-Russian forces launched an offensive on the site, using “artillery and aircraft”, the Russian Defense Ministry said. According to Ukrainian officials, 200 civilians are still stuck in the building despite the evacuations.
More than a hundred evacuees
A total of 127 people were accompanied to Zaporijjia, 200 kilometers to the northwest, according to the UN, including “101 civilians” evacuated “successfully from the Azovstal metallurgical plant”. In this group, 58 people joined the convoy from Mangouch, in the suburbs of Mariupol. Other evacuees decided not to travel to Zaporizhia with the convoy, said UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Osnat Lubrani. These evacuations are coordinated by Russian and Ukrainian forces, as well as United Nations services and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense assured Monday that it had coordinated the evacuation of 126 people between Saturday and Sunday on the site of the steelworks and in the surrounding area. 57 of them chose to remain “voluntarily” in the Donetsk region, occupied by Russian forces and pro-Russian separatists. The other 69 were “handed over to representatives of the United Nations and the Red Cross” to be transported to Zaporizhia, the ministry said.
This group is mainly made up of women, children and the elderly who had taken refuge in the Azovstal factory, underground, to escape the bombardments of the Russian forces. “ There, in the shelters, people have been hiding for two months to avoid the Russian bombardments. They are dehydrated, they have very little food,” explained the head of humanitarian corridors to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Tatiana Lomakina, on BFM TV. “About 800 to 900 civilians are still on the site and are scattered,” added the deputy mayor of Mariupol, Sergei Orlov, on LCI. It also counts 500 wounded on the site, civilians and soldiers included.
An expected arrival in Zaporijjia
Initially, the Ukrainians from Mariupol who were able to leave Azovstal were to reach the city of Zaporizhia from there on Monday. President Zelensky foresaw moreover to welcome them personally. But the armored vehicles of Unicef and other vehicles of international NGOs installed in Zaporijjia had not seen any convoy arrive on Monday. On Tuesday, the UN and IARC confirmed that the refugees from Mariupol had finally arrived.
On Monday, images released by the Russian Defense Ministry and a Reuters report showed the refugees being transported to the village of Bezimenne, about 30 kilometers east of Mariupol, which is under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
New evacuation attempts
Monday, a new evacuation was to be organized from Mariupol, from Port City, a commercial center of the city. But the coaches in charge of transport did not show up at the meeting point, testified the town hall midday Monday.
A new attempt was launched on Tuesday, announced the Ukrainian presidency. This time, a meeting point was set far from Mariupol, on a roundabout near Berdiansk, some 70 kilometers from the city.
At the same time, the Russian army and the pro-Russian forces launched a “powerful assault” against the Azovstal site, announced a commander of the Azov regiment, which defends the place. He also said that heavy shelling had taken place the night before this assault, which killed two women and injured “about 10 civilians”.
The destination of the refugees at stake
The destination of Ukrainians rescued from Mariupol is an important issue. The village of Bezimenne, in particular, has already been singled out by Ukrainian officials and NGOs, as it is suspected of hosting a “filtration” camp which is only a stage in the forced evacuation of Ukrainians to Russia.
US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter, interviewed by CNN, claims to know that four such camps are located around Mariupol. If the forced evacuations – described as deportations by some – were proven, they would constitute a “violation of international humanitarian law, and a war crime”, warned Michael Carpenter. The Russian Ministry of Defense assures that the Ukrainian refugees who joined the pro-Russian separatist regions did so voluntarily.
International humanitarian law, which is based in particular on the Geneva Convention, prohibits any “party to an armed conflict” from “forcibly displacing civilians”, unless the security of the civilians or military imperatives so require, explains the Cross. Red. “Internally displaced persons have the right to return in safety to their homes or their usual place of residence as soon as the reasons for their displacement disappear”, specifies the organization.