Conflicts & War

Only 3 of 14 buses evacuated from Mariupol reached safe territory

Kyiv, May 3 (EFE).- Only three of the 14 buses that reportedly evacuated civilians from the city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine have arrived in territory controlled by the Ukrainian Army, the city’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said in an interaction with the media on Tuesday.

The whereabouts of the people in the other 11 buses that left Mariupol remains unknown, according to the mayor, who is recognized by the Ukrainian government but who no longer controls most parts of that coastal city in the pro-Russian region of Donetsk.

Boichenko believed that the 11 buses went missing somewhere while on the way to Ukraine-contrlled Zaporizhzhia city, according to Interfax-Ukraine agency.

He also stressed that the people traveling in them could be detained in the so called filtration camps, where civilians from areas captured by the Russians are forcefully taken and screened before relocating them.

The mayor said there four of these camps in and around Mariupol, where citizens were being taken while trying to travel to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

Boichenko believed there were still about 100,000 citizens in Mariupol, including at least 200 holed up at the Azovstal steel plant.

Mariupol, on the edge of the Sea of Azov, was besieged by Russian troops practically from the start of the invasion of Ukraine on Feb.24.

The city is an essential point in Moscow’s strategy to try to establish a corridor that links the southern and eastern areas it already controls or has been attempting to gain control. EFE

rml-int/sc

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