Humanitarian Update: Mariupol: Partial-Ceasefire Broken- 5 March 2022 11:31 (GMT)
The ceasefire that Mariupol’s council negotiated with the Russian military, which began four hours ago, has reportedly been broken by Russian forces. According to Serhiy Orlov, the city's Deputy Mayor, Russia has continued to shell areas near the end of the evacuation route in breach of its agreement.
Due to this, the City Council announced;
“The evacuation of the population is postponed!!” asking citizens to disperse to shelters. It said police would patrol with loud speakers to keep people informed, telling residents to “hold on!"”.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister subsequently announced that Russia had violated a ceasefire agreement and attacks are now ongoing in the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha (which was also covered by a partial-ceasefire).
Originally, according to a city official, the ceasefire in Mariupol was planned to last until 2pm after the evacuation along a “humanitarian corridor” began at 9am. Pavlo Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk military-civil administration that includes Mariupol said that the humanitarian corridor would extend from the city to Zaporizhzhia. The Red Cross were to act as guarantor of the ceasefire.
Ukraine’s government said that it had planned to evacuate 200,000 people from Mariupol, and 15,000 from Volnovakha. Citizens in these places, according to Mariupol’s Mayor, lacked water, heat, and electricity. Food is becoming increasingly scarce too.
Ukraine more broadly is fast-becoming one of the most pressing humanitarian crises globally. The ICRC said that its operation in Ukraine is among the 10 largest in the world, and it is increasing as the situation deteriorates.The UN World Food Program has also stated that millions of people inside Ukraine will need food aid “immediately”. There are currently 1.3 million Ukrainians refugees fleeing the country, and rising, in what the UN says could become the “biggest refugee crisis this century”.
The Ukrainian government had said there would be further agreements with Russia on establishing humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from frontline areas. However, given the potential reneging, this will be in doubt. While perhaps a “false start”, the perception of bad faith Russia’s actions create means that evacuating, and potentially convincing, civilians to leave will be an even harder challenge for authorities across Ukraine.