Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakow said on the 15th that a container ship had left Odessa, a major export port in southeast Ukraine, which had been blocked again since the end of the Black Sea Grain Agreement.
It has been five days since the announcement that we will open a ‘humanitarian route’.
See also: Ukraine “opens ‘humanitarian route’ for grain exports to the Black Sea”…Russia’s interest
On the same day (15th), Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakou mentioned the new temporary passage through social media, saying, “There is a container ship that departed from the Black Sea port Odessa” and “the first ship used the temporary passage to and from Odessa” added.
Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakou described the vessel as the Hong Kong-shipped Joseph Schultehoe.
It did not comment on whether Russia would respect the safety of the vessel’s navigation.
It is known that experts in maritime transportation and insurance have expressed their concerns.
Earlier, on the 10th, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Ole Chalik announced that work had been done to open a grain export route to the Black Sea, saying “a new temporary humanitarian channel has started to work”.
“We will install cameras on the vessel and demonstrate that this is a purely humanitarian mission and has no military purpose,” said Chalik.
Since the end of midnight on the 17th of last month (00:00 on the 18th) when Russia refused to extend the Black Sea Grain Agreement for the fourth time, the Russian military has been intensively attacking the Odessa area and the Danube River alternative transport route.
■ “Nearly 10,000 civilian deaths”
A United Nations investigation has found that the number of civilians killed in Ukraine since February 24, 2018, when Russia invaded Ukraine, has risen to 10,000.
On the 15th, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the latest data update, which concluded that 9,444 civilians had died and 16,940 were injured from the start of the war until the 13th of this month.
From 24 February 2022 to 13 August 2023, we recorded 26,384 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 9,444 killed and 16,940 injured. Actual figures are considerably higher.
— UNHumanRightsUkraine (@UNHumanRightsUA) August 15, 2023
It is estimated that about 500 children were among the civilian deaths.
OHCHR said the actual number of casualties may be much higher than published figures due to delays in collecting statistics from some battlegrounds.
This is because information is blocked in Russian-occupied areas such as Mariupol, Lyshchansk, and Severodonetsk, making it difficult to accurately determine the scale of human casualties.
By region, 7,339 civilians died on the frontlines defended by Ukrainian forces, and 2,105 died in areas occupied by Russian forces.
In particular, the death toll in eastern Ukraine, which is part of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, where fierce fighting continues, is overwhelmingly higher than in the central and western regions.
By period, the number of deaths was high in the early days of the war, and between March and June of this year, 170 to 180 people lost their lives every month.
This is VOA News Jongsu Oh.
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2023-08-16 08:51:23
