Evacuation concludes successfully in Ukraine’s Sumy

International Desk, Mar 9 (EFE).- The evacuation of the besieged city of Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, has been successfully completed and a total of 5,000 people have been moved to safe areas, according to Ukraine’s deputy presidential chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko posted information about the evacuations overnight on Telegram, with pictures of people leaving the city in cars, trains and buses.

He underlined the evacuation of the city had been a success and that apart from the 5,000 people, some 1,000 private cars too had left the city.

The evacuation of Sumy – which had a population of 270,000 – began early Tuesday with the exit of the first group of around 20 buses packed with people, mostly foreign students from India.

A second group of more than 35 buses left the city in the afternoon with more than 600 people aboard.

More than two million people have already fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began 13 days ago, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

After three consecutive days of frustrated evacuation attempts, Ukraine and Russia finally agreed on Tuesday to open a humanitarian corridor from Sumy to Poltava in the east of the country, a route previously notified to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Sumy, situated near the border with Russia, has been heavily bombed over the past four days. EFE

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