Dozens of buses, loaded with civilians, left Sumy on Tuesday morning March 8, local authorities said.
The inhabitants of this city of 250,000 inhabitants, located 150 km south-west of Kiev in Ukraine, are fleeing the Russian strikes.
The day before, heavy shelling hit civilian homes, killing at least 21 people.
A humanitarian corridor has been set up, with a local ceasefire from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., to allow the population to evacuate.
“This fact was officially accepted by the Russian Ministry of Defense in a letter addressed to the Committee of the Red Cross,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
“It is about the evacuation of civilians from Sumy to Poltava, including foreign students, especially Indian and Chinese citizens.
It is also about the delivery of goods, especially food and medicine,” she continued.
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War in Ukraine: the Russians do not respect the humanitarian corridor in Mariupol, denounces Kiev
Humanitarian corridors have also been set up in other besieged cities, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Cherniguiv and Mariupol.
This initiative has already been tried several times in this last strategic port city.
But without success.
The evacuation of civilians seems once again compromised in Mariupol on Tuesday.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, the Russians do not respect the device.
"The enemy launched an attack exactly in the direction of the humanitarian corridor," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry accused in a Facebook post.
Ukraine also denounces the route of these corridors, which mostly pass through Russia or Belarus.