Russia, Ukraine agree to implement humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians

Ukraine has reached a preliminary agreement with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor to evacuate women, children and the elderly from the besieged city of Mariupol on Wednesday, Ukraine's deputy PM says.

"Given the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Mariupol,this is where we will focus our efforts today," Iryna Vereshchuk wrote in a post on Facebook.

As we've been reporting, people have been trapped in the key strategic port city for weeks without supplies of food, water and medicines. Here's why it's so important a target for Russia.

In the past, such evacuation corridors have been fraught with difficulty to set up and implement.

Russian troops have been accused of blocking bus convoys at checkpoints. Russia has also been accused of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians to Russia or Russian-controlled areas.

Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for a four-day halt in fighting in Ukraine, starting Thursday to coincide with Orthodox Christians’ Holy Week observances.

Noting that Orthodox Easter is coming amid an intensifying Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, the U.N. chief said Tuesday that the need for a “humanitarian pause” is all the more urgent.

Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya called on Russia to heed Guterres’ call.

But Russian deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said Tuesday he was “a bit skeptical” about the idea.

Guterres said the goal is to allow for evacuating civilians from “current or expected areas of confrontation” and or getting more humanitarian aid into desperately needy places such as Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson. More than four million people in those areas need assistance, Guterres said.

The proposal comes after the U.N. recently helped to foster a two-month truce in Yemen’s civil war, halting fighting as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began.

(with inputs from AP)