Families relieved as Red Cross team is freed in Ukraine

A Red Cross team has been released after being held in the Ukrainian port of Manhush while trying to reach the Russian-besieged city of Mariupol.

A senior Ukraine government member said the team was freed overnight after being detained on Monday by Russian forces occupying Manhush, about 20km from Mariupol. The team was released on Monday night.

“This is of great relief to us and to their families,” the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement. It said its team is focused on “continuing the humanitarian evacuation operation” from Mariupol, where tens of thousands of residents are trapped with few supplies after weeks of bombardment by Russian forces besieging Manhush.

“This incident [on Monday] shows how volatile and complex the operation to facilitate safe passage around Mariupol has been for our team, who have been trying to reach the city since Friday.”

The ICRC did not say how many of its personnel were held in Manhush. It said last week that its team trying to reach Mariupol consisted of nine people.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the ICRC team was  sent back to the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is under Ukrainian government control and farther from Mariupol than Manhush.

“After negotiations, they were released during the night and sent to Zaporizhzhia,” she said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s efforts to push back Russian troops from Mariupol faces difficulties and the military situation there is “very difficult”.

He said Turkey has proposed a plan to help remove the wounded and dead from the city on the Sea of Azov, but cautioned that the initiative depended on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Both sides blame each other for the failure of repeated efforts to open “humanitarian corridors” to deliver supplies to Mariupol and evacuate civilians.

Mariupol’s mayor says up to 170,000 people are trapped without power and with limited food. Reuters witnesses say Russian-backed troops have been collecting bodies of local residents and what look like Ukrainian soldiers.

A local resident, whose mother was killed, said she is planting tulips to raise her spirits. “What else should I do now? Just lie down and wait? We already have someone lying over there, waiting to be collected.”

Mariupol is seen as a strategic prize for Russian forces that invaded Ukraine on February 24. Capturing the city would create a bridge between Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014, and two Russian-backed separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine.

The Mariupol mayor’s office estimates that nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the city in its siege by Russian forces.

Russia says it does not target civilians in its “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say the invasion was unprovoked and unjustified. 

Reuters