Russia Tightens Mariupol Siege, Humanitarian Aid And Humanitarian Convoy Can Not Enter

Ilustrasi kondisi Mariupol. (Wikimedia Commons/mvs.gov.ua/Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Mariupol City officials said the besieged area was closed to anyone trying to enter, and very dangerous for anyone trying to enter.

Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushchenko's aide said Russian troops had since Thursday prevented even the smallest amount of humanitarian supplies from reaching trapped residents, explaining the planned "humanitarian corridor" had not been opened.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped for weeks with little food, water and other supplies, in a city that was once home to 400,000 people but has been devastated by Russian bombing.

"The city remains closed for entry and it is very dangerous to go out by private transport," he said on the Telegram app

"In addition, since yesterday the occupiers have firmly refused to allow humanitarian aid, even in small amounts, to this city," he said.

Meanwhile, the bus convoy that left for Mariupol on Thursday did not reach the city, Ukrainian officials said late Thursday.

Separately, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote in an online post late on Thursday that new efforts would be made to bring a humanitarian corridor into Mariupol, not leaving the residents there alone.

In a Facebook post, the Ukrainian General Staff said their troops were still successfully defending Mariupol, the gateway to the Black Sea that connects a strategic corridor between Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula.

Earlier, the Mariupol mayor's office estimated that 5,000 civilians died in the city siege, out of an estimated population of 170,000 the mayor said earlier this week.

It is known that repeated attempts to organize a safe corridor have failed, with each side blaming the other. The governor of the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine said separately he hoped five safe corridors would open on Friday for cities in his region.