Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner's Office working to arrange additional evacuation from Oleshky

The Office of Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner is working to arrange an additional safe evacuation route for residents of Oleshky in Kherson Oblast and surrounding settlements.

Source: Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets

Quote: "Following the successful humanitarian mission, we continue to receive calls and requests from residents of Oleshky and the Oleshky hromada. People who have seen that the safe evacuation mechanism worked are now also expressing their desire to leave for territory controlled by the Ukrainian government. [A hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories.]

We are continuing to collect and update information about each such person: we are verifying their whereabouts, health, mobility, family composition, whether they have documents, and whether they need medical or specialised transport."

Details: Lubinets added that particular attention is being paid to the elderly, people with limited mobility, people with disabilities, those who are seriously ill, and families with children.

The Human Rights Commissioner's Office is working to arrange an additional safe evacuation route for residents of Oleshky and other settlements in the Oleshky hromada.

This will require the relevant humanitarian and security arrangements to be agreed.

Lubinets said that as soon as a safe mechanism has been developed, those concerned will receive the necessary information.

Read more: Everyone's afraid, but they're pressing on: how the local ceasefire in Oleshky became a test for a broader deal

Background:

• On 2 November, US First Lady Melania Trump said that nearly 800 people were evacuated from Oleshky during a temporary ceasefire agreed to allow civilians to leave.
• Lubinets said at a press conference that, under the agreement with the Russian side, the Ukrainian authorities will not disclose how many Oleshky residents had chosen to return to Ukraine and how many had left for territory controlled by Russia.
• The commissioner also reported that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, to ask Melania Trump to expand the humanitarian mission model used in Oleshky to other settlements where the situation is dire.

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