The Greek Consul-General in Mariupol, Manolis Androulakis, the last remaining European Union diplomatic official to remain in the besieged city, was finally evacuated on Tuesday and spent the night in Zaporizhzhia, about 220km to the west of Mariupol on the Dnieper River, the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini has reported.
Quoting diplomatic sources, the newspaper said the operation to evacuate Mr Androulakis along with local staff members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and their families began on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Androulakis spent Thursday night in Uman, in westerm Ukraine, before resuming the journey to towards Moldova on Friday morning.
In preparing for the consul-general’s evacuation, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias contacted with Ukrainian and Russian officials and with OSCE, the Red Cross and the Vatican. Mr Androulakis was part of a multinational convoy of over 30 people.
The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday, 16 March, that close to 20,000 civilians had also fled Mariupol along the humanitarian corridor that Mr Androulakis’s group took westwards to Zaphoriszhzhia. The British newspaper said the evacuation was the largest yet out of the city. Up to 4,000 cars left the city on the same route.
The Russian Ministry of Defence provided buses to take refugees on routes out of the besieged city that led to Russia and Belarus. It is not known how many people took these routes.
