ICRC: Evacuation route in Ukraine's Mariupol was mined
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An ICRC official has said that a route taken by a convoy of displaced civilians out of Mariupol on Sunday was mined, without specifying which faction was behind it.
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Ukrainian Azov Battalion forces
The director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that a road designated as a humanitarian corridor out of Ukraine's Mariupol turned out to be mined.
During a BBC morning show, Dominik Stillhart said that the International Committee of the Red Cross was leading a convoy of displaced Ukrainian civilians out of the southern port city on Sunday. He did not specify which faction was suspected of mining the route.
"Our people were leading that convoy. They arrived at the first checkpoint only to realize that the road they were supposed to take was actually mined," Stillhart stressed.
Furthermore, he added that the health aid charity is in talks with Russia and Ukraine to organize military-to-military talks and agree on roads and times for evacuations, "Otherwise it will be difficult... to facilitate the agreement."
Russia announced Monday that it will open humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to be evacuated from several Ukrainian cities amid the fighting, including the capital Kiev and Mariupol.
Yet, the Ukrainian nao-Nazi Azov Battalion had different plans, as it opened fire on civilians during their evacuation from Mariupol on Sunday, resulting in the death of two people and the injury of four others.
Earlier, militants of the same far-right battalion blew up a building in Mariupol on the heads of around 200 civilians, including women and children, according to Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
It is worth mentioning that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations have met three times in Belarus to discuss the terms of a ceasefire as well as the establishment of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of Ukraine's civilian population from areas of hostilities.
On February 24, Russia launched a special operation to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine in response to DPR and LPR calls for assistance in countering Ukrainian troop aggression. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the special operation is only targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure and poses no threat to civilians. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of occupying Ukraine.
