Add StudioX as a preferred source on GoogleDozens of people evacuated from the devastated, Russian-occupied city of Oleshky have crossed from Belarus into Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, according to BBC World. The evacuation was made possible by a local ceasefire that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says was brokered with the help of US First Lady Melania Trump.
The BBC described raw emotional scenes on arrival. Families who had not seen relatives for years cried and embraced. Two sisters ran across the tarmac toward the bus carrying their father, and their mother held his face in her hands. Some elderly evacuees were so weak they had to be carried on stretchers.
A long and indirect route out
Ukrainian military positions are only 5 km (3.1 miles) from Oleshky. Even so, evacuees first had to travel through Russian-occupied territory to southern Russia and fly from there to Belarus. They were then driven across Ukraine’s northern border on Saturday.
The convoy left the city on Friday afternoon. It had 25 buses with room for 750 people, plus ambulances for those with limited mobility. Residents had a four-hour window to leave. The BBC said the convoy had as many ambulances as coaches. Some evacuees were on crutches or in wheelchairs.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the oldest evacuee was 94 and the youngest was one.
Life in the besieged city
Before the war, Oleshky had 24,000 residents. The BBC reports that people trapped there lacked food, water and electricity, and many cooked garden weeds to survive. Bringing in supplies was extremely difficult. Escape was also highly dangerous because the routes out were mined and exposed to drone attacks.
Bridges over the nearby Dnipro River have been destroyed, and sources told the BBC the riverbank is mined. One resident who fled three weeks earlier said he walked through 24 km (15 miles) of minefields to reach safety. The ceasefire allowed the road out to be cleared of mines and humanitarian aid to be delivered.
One older couple, Tetiana and Volodymyr, told the BBC their home was burned down in the first year of the war. They had since been living in a neighbour’s abandoned house. They said they decided to leave at once but worried the journey might be disrupted. They now have to work out where to go and how to rebuild.
Several hundred people are understood to have chosen to stay despite the devastation and the lack of gas, electricity and running water. A relative told the BBC that some older residents did not want to leave. Lubinets said those who stayed will receive all necessary humanitarian assistance. Russia said it had prepared “dozens of tonnes” of aid for them, including food, medicine, hygiene products and fuel for generators.
Cooperation draws criticism, and fighting goes on
A humanitarian ceasefire took effect across the Kherson region on Tuesday. The BBC says it brought the area its first few days of peace in four years. The measures are due to remain in place until the end of Sunday, 1 November.
Lubinets and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, travelled to Oleshky together on Friday, setting off from Armiansk in Russian-occupied Crimea. Lubinets is the first Ukrainian official to visit Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine since the war began. He said the cooperation was aimed at saving lives. Some people in Ukraine, however, have reacted badly to seeing him next to a representative of the occupying power.
Zelensky praised Lubinets and his team. He also thanked those who helped draw attention to what he called a “true humanitarian catastrophe” in occupied territory. In a post on X, he said the evacuees would get the help they need and urged authorities at all levels to help them adapt.
The war has not stopped elsewhere. Zelensky said Russia attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure, hitting electricity substations, thermal power plants and gas facilities. Ukraine’s military said it struck a major Russian producer of missile fuel in the Rostov region.
Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are due to resume ceasefire talks in Abu Dhabi in early November. Those discussions were suspended earlier this year because of the Iran war, the BBC reports.
Source: BBC World
Harnaik Singh Rathor is the Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of StudioX News Canada, Canada's multilingual digital news network serving multilingual diaspora communities across Canada. With a background in media production, public relations, and multicultural communications, he founded StudioX Film and TV Corporation to bridge the gap between mainstream Canadian media and the country's diverse immigrant communities. He is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), RTDNA Canada, CPRS Vancouver, NEPMCC, and the Canadian Freelance Union (Unifor). Based in Surrey, British Columbia. | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harnaiksinghrathor/ | Muck Rack: https://muckrack.com/harnaiksinghrathor | Email: editor@studioxnews.ca
