Evacuees from Russian-occupied Oleshky cross into Ukraine
Residents who survived without food or water were moved from Belarus to the Chernihiv region following a local ceasefire.
Residents from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky crossed from Belarus into the Chernihiv region of Ukraine on Saturday, according to BBC News. The group included people as young as one year old and as old as 94, according to Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.
The evacuation followed a local ceasefire in the Kherson frontline region that took effect on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said US First Lady Melania Trump helped broker the ceasefire, which allowed a convoy of 25 buses and several ambulances to leave the town on Friday afternoon.
Evacuees had been trapped in Oleshky without electricity, water, or food, with some resorting to cooking garden weeds to survive. The city, which had a population of 24,000 before the war, faced dangerous conditions due to mined routes and drone attacks.
The journey involved travelling through Russian-occupied territory to southern Russia, flying to Belarus, and then being driven across the northern Ukrainian border. While many fled, several hundred people chose to remain in the city despite the lack of running water and gas.
Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova travelled to Oleshky on Friday to assist with the movement of people. Lubinets, the first Ukrainian official to visit Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine since the war began, said the cooperation was carried out to save lives.
