Thousands of people have been evacuated from the besieged port city of Mariupol via a humanitarian corridor since Monday, while some 30 Turkish residents have sought refuge in a mosque in Mariupol.
According to Ismail Hacioglu, president of Mariupol’s Sultan Suleyman Mosque Association, over 50 Turkish citizens have fled the city in the previous two days, including the majority of the more than 80 Turks who sought safety in the mosque.
“Eight cars left the mosque on Wednesday – four had Turkish citizens inside, four had Muslims from other nationalities that were sheltering there. Every car has seven to eight people in it,” Hacioglu, who is helping to coordinate the evacuation, told news media.
The convoy has not yet crossed through Tokmak, roughly 175 kilometres (109 miles) distant, as of Thursday afternoon. Hacioglu stated that they were on their way to Uman, Ukraine, where they will spend one night, and that the Turkish embassy is in charge of all arrangements.
Tokmak is one of six cities in the region that Russian military have captured.
“Russian troops are harassing them. Last night, they stopped vehicles just before Tokmak. They didn’t let people get out of their cars and the women and children froze all night,” Hacioglu said.
“Even though some women asked to go out to go to the toilet, they told them to open the door and just do it right there.”
Hacioglu’s wife, son, and cousin, as well as the mosque’s imam, Mehmet Yuce, were among those who were evacuated. Hacioglu said that he receives 200 urgent calls every day from people looking for information on their relatives.
Concerns about the safety of Mariupol’s surviving Turkish residents grew after the Ukrainian foreign ministry announced last week that the mosque had been damaged as fighting in the city centre escalated, but Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a day later that it’s still intact.
The Turkish mosque congregation is thought to have 34 children, though it is unclear how many of them have fled the city.
According to numbers given by the city council on Thursday via their official Telegram channel, 6,500 private cars transporting an estimated 30,000 individuals have left Mariupol so far this week.
The city has no access to electricity, gas, or water, and Russian weapons continue to bombard it.
The situation is “serious,” according to Mayor Vadym Boychenko, with 80 percent of the city’s housing damaged. Food supplies are running low, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that medicines for chronic illnesses including diabetes and cancer are in limited supply.
The evacuation comes after more than a week of fruitless attempts to ensure safe passage out of the city for residents, with prior attempts stalled while Russia’s shelling continued.
It’s estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 people are still stranded in the city.
Apart from the 30 Turks who remain in the mosque, another 100 Turks are believed to be trapped in Mariupol as a whole, unable to be contacted due to a near-complete communications blackout.
