As of March 16, the Ukrainian side has not received a response on the approval of humanitarian corridors, and so far there are no guarantees for the safe evacuation of residents of settlements affected by the Russian invasion. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk.
"During the work of humanitarian corridors in the last few days, Russia has started gross violations of the ceasefire agreements. The invaders began firing at humanitarian convoys of buses, settlements and gathering places of people from which the evacuation of civilians was planned, as well as taking hostages of escorts," she said.
Iryna Vereshchuk reminded that Oleksiy Danchenko, a rescuer from the State Emergency Service, remains in captivity. In addition, the invaders seized an intensive care hospital in Mariupol, took hostage 400 people, medical staff, and shelling is held from there now.
"We have not received a response to our proposals made yesterday to the International Committee of the Red Cross to open humanitarian corridors today. The issue of organizing humanitarian corridors today for Izyum and Mariupol remains open. In such conditions, of course, we cannot safely evacuate people," said the Deputy Prime Minister.
According to her, work is underway to organize the delivery of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to the captured or surrounded settlements of the Luhansk, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Chernihiv and Kherson regions.
Iryna Vereshchuk added that in case of change or opening of humanitarian corridors she will inform during the day.