After weeks of trying, buses carrying Mariupol evacuees were able to leave from nearby Berdyansk on Friday. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, more than 3,000 people are involved.
Today, humanitarian corridors operate in three regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporozhye. “We managed to rescue 6,266 people, including 3,071 from Mariupol,” President Zelensky said in a video message on Friday evening.
The southern port city had been besieged and attacked by Russian forces for weeks, and food had almost ran out. Attempts to establish humanitarian corridors always fail because the Russians will not abide by the ceasefire. But on Friday evening, a few dozen buses managed to leave from nearby Berdyansk, with Mariupol residents managing to escape there.
1,431 people managed to travel from Berdyansk and Melitopol to Zaporozhye on their own. 771 of them came from Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereshuk, explained that 42 buses from Berdyansk with residents of Mariupol and 12 buses from Melitopol with local residents were on their way to Zaporozhye in the evening, representing a total of more than 2,500 people.
Vereshock stressed that more evacuations are expected and planned on Saturday. The Red Cross is also planning another attempt to free people from Mariupol today after their team had to return on Friday because it was not safe. Prior to the invasion, Mariupol had a population of over 400,000, and at least 160,000 are said to have remained behind.
