The first civilians evacuated through humanitarian corridors from the city of Sumy, 350 km northeast of Kyiv, have arrived “safely” in the center of the country, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration announced on Tuesday. .
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“Good news, civilians have been evacuated from Sumy. The first convoy of 22 buses has already arrived (in the city of) Poltava” southeast of Kyiv, Kyrylo Tymoshenko announced on Telegram.
“1100 foreign students will continue to be evacuated by train to Lviv. Now everyone is safe, has received food,” he continued.
A second column of 39 buses of civilians is on the way and is “already in the Poltava region”, according to him. “They are children, women, old people, foreign students. People will be able to stay in Poltava or continue their evacuation to Lviv”, in the west, he writes.
“I am pleased that the work of the evacuation team at this stage has gone very successfully. Thank you to the people of Sumy for bravely fighting the enemy for 13 days,” he concluded.
The Ukrainian authorities had announced the establishment of a humanitarian corridor on Tuesday morning to evacuate civilians from Sumy, a city of more than 250,000 inhabitants located near the Russian border and the scene of heavy fighting for several days.
According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, the Russian Defense Ministry had pledged in a letter to the Red Cross to respect a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians on Tuesday, with a ceasefire from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. local (7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. GMT).
At least 21 people including two children were killed Monday evening in Russian airstrikes against a residential area of Sumy.