4.1.22
An International Committee of the Red Cross convoy was forced to turn around after it attempted to evacuate Ukrainian civilians trapped in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, where many residents have gone weeks without heat, electricity and clean water. "The ICRC team, which consists of three vehicles and nine personnel, did not reach Mariupol or facilitate the safe passage of civilians today," the humanitarian organization said in a statement on Friday. ICRC personnel will try again on Saturday to reach Mariupol, which has been the center of a brutal assault by Russian forces for weeks. The ICRC was slated to lead a convoy of around 50 buses from Mariupol full of civilians trying to escape the bombarded city. "It's desperately important that this operation takes place," the ICRC said earlier. "The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it." But on Friday, the evacuation team was forced to return to nearby "Zaporizhzhia after arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed," the organization said in a statement.
Russian forces have continuously shelled Mariupol, targeting schools, hospitals, and even a theater marked as a shelter with children inside. Previous attempts to evacuate civilians or create humanitarian corridors from Mariupol have failed or been blocked by Russian forces, leading its mayor Vadym Boichenko to say Putin's forces are "playing" a "cynical game." It's unclear exactly how many civilians have been killed in Mariupol since the Russian invasion began on February 24 — the United Nations said earlier in the week that there have been "high numbers of civilian casualties," but collecting and verifying information has been difficult.
abcnews.go.com