Russian Attacks Halt Plans to Evacuate Ukrainian Civilians
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — A second attempt to evacuate civilians from a besieged city in southern Ukraine has collapsed.
A Ukrainian government official said the plans fell apart Sunday because Russian attacks made it impossible to create a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol.
Food, water, medicine, and almost all other supplies were in desperately short supply in the port city, where Russian and Ukrainian forces had agreed to an 11-hour cease-fire to allow civilians and the wounded to be evacuated.
The news dashed hopes that more people could escape the fighting.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis called for an end to the “rivers of blood and tears” created by the war.
In an unusual move, he also dispatched two cardinals to Ukraine.