A child is helped off a bus at the registration center in Zaporizhzhia, where the International Committee of the Red Cross said it had a team of three cars and nine staff waiting to head out towards the besieged city of Mariupol from Zaporizhzhia, more than 200 kilometres away on April 1, 2022. emre caylak / AFPThe Red Cross said a team sent to help evacuate thousands of civilians from Mariupol on Friday had been forced to turn around, but would try again Saturday.
The ICRC had planned for its team to lead a convoy out of the city, which has been under intense Russian bombardment for weeks. ICRC spokesman Ewan Watson had warned earlier Friday that it was not certain the evacuations would be able to go ahead as planned. The plan on Friday had been for a total of 54 buses, and many more civilian vehicles, containing thousands of people seeking to flee the city, to take part in the convoy, Watson said.