Reuters reports the prospect of a ceasefire this morning that could allow residents of Mariupol and Volnovakha to safely flee their homes.
It cites Interfax news agency:
Russian forces will stop firing at 1000 Moscow time to allow humanitarian corridors out of the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, Russia’s defence ministry said, Interfax reported.
The mayor of Mariupol earlier warned the city has been “blockaded” by Russian forces and appealed for a humanitarian corridor to allow citizens to leave. Mayor Vadym Boychenkohas previously said the city has no water, heat or electricity and that supplies of food are low. “They want to wipe Mariupol and Mariupol residents off the face of the earth,” the mayor said, describing indiscriminate shelling of residential areas and hospitals.
The port city, home to 400,000 residents, is a strategic target for Russia. If Russia were to control the city, this would help it to build a land corridor between Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014, and Russian-backed regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
The town of Volnovakha has also been subject to some of the heaviest Russian attacks. Guardian correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison reported on the dire situation in the town:
In Volnovakha, the attack is still so intense that dead bodies lie uncollected, says local MP Dmytro Lubinets. Ukrainians still brave enough to run rescue missions are going back only for the living.
Thousands of them are trapped in basements, with dwindling supplies of food and water, sheltering from an apparently senseless attack on a town Lubinets says has no military defenders in its centre. The line of contact is 20km away, he says.
“It never stops, every five minutes there is a mortar landing or artillery shells, some buildings have been hit by multiple rocket systems,” he said by phone.
“In the city there is not any building which has not suffered from direct or collateral damage. So some buildings have major destruction, some minor destruction, some are completely destroyed to the ground.”
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