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Evacuations begin in two cities during temporary ceasefire

International Desk | banglanews24.com
Update: 2022-03-05 15:56:55
Evacuations begin in two cities during temporary ceasefire [photo collected]

Mariupol is being evacuated as part of a temporary ceasefire. We spoke to Diana Berg, who fled the encircled city on Thursday. Here she describes her extraordinary experience of escaping a “horrifying, terrifying hell”.

“As of yesterday morning, it was the third day of total blackout. The shelling was constant,” she tells Radio 4's Today programme.

Everything from kindergartens to hospitals has been shelled, she says.

Electricity has been cut off - meaning no heat, running water, or connectivity, and no fuel in the petrol stations. People are left in cold, dark buildings.

The power cut has left a “terrifying silence”.

“When there’s a total blockade, total blackout, you cannot know what’s happening. The only news you get is the direction of the shelling - whether it’s on the right or on the left.”

Leaving the city was a “suicide mission”, she says. “It’s a miracle we’re alive."

She and her husband escaped by car, all the time thinking they'd be shot or jailed. On the way out, they encountered two lines of Russian forces.

They saw Russian machines - "not tanks, but big war armed machines" - crossing the roads to go to the fields.

“We just squeezed between two of them very fast. They pointed their [arms] on us... but they didn’t fire," she says.

“Mariupol was a resistance symbol... it was a sign of how Ukraine is not giving up," Diana adds. But now Russia is just "smashing it down".

"They don’t want to occupy it," she says. "They don’t want it to surrender. They just want it dead.”

Russia must not take advantage of an agreed humanitarian corridor to advance its troops, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has warned.

She said her government was "verifying" information that Russian troops were using the ceasefire to move closer to Ukrainian positions in areas along the evacuation routes.

"We are using this channel to evacuate civilians - women and children - as well as to deliver humanitarian cargo to those remaining," she said. "The whole world is watching."

Vereshchuk also confirmed that the International Committee of the Red Cross mediated the talks on the ceasefire, and will head the evacuation columns along the agreed routes out of the cities.

The ceasefire is in place around the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha from 09:00 -16:00 local time (07:00-14:00 GMT).

Source: BBC

BDST: 1554 HRS, MAR 05, 2022
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