April 29,2022: Guterres met with Zelenskyy following talks with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday when the Russian leader agreed “in principle” to UN and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement in evacuating the Azovstal plant.
Guterres said intense discussions were continuing to enable the evacuation of the steel plant where fighters and civilians are holed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
The Mariupol city council has said about 100,000 residents across the city are “in mortal danger” because of Russian shelling and unsanitary conditions, and described a “catastrophic” shortage of drinking water and food.
“Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis. Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance. Many are elderly, in need of medical care or have limited mobility,” Guterres told reporters. “They need an escape route out of the apocalypse.”
Referring to the possibility of a UN and ICRC-coordinated humanitarian corridor for the hundreds of civilians believed to still be in Azovstal, Guterres said: “As we speak, there are intense discussions to move forward on this proposal to make it a reality.
“I can only tell you we are doing everything we can to make it happen. I’m not going to enter into any comment that could undermine that possibility,” he said.
Russia is preventing wounded Ukrainian fighters from being evacuated from the steel factory, the local governor said.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been quite clear while civilians could leave the plant, the defenders had to lay down their arms, the Tass state-owned news agency reported.
