The Ukrainian commissioner for Human Rights, Dimitro Lubinets, reported this Saturday that the residents of Oleshki have managed to cross the border after completing without incident a humanitarian operation driven with the mediation of the United States, in which a temporary ceasefire, the sending of supplies and the evacuation of civilians trapped in this locality have been agreed upon.
"The moment we had all been waiting for: the residents of Oleshki have crossed the border. The humanitarian mission has been successfully completed!", Lubinets communicated, who highlighted the collaboration of his counterpart, Yana Lantratova, and the coordination of the U.S. first lady, Melania Trump, to whom he thanked her personal involvement.
The operation has been possible after a prolonged process of conversations that has resulted in a ceasefire agreement, in force until 22:59 hours (local time) this Sunday and which has become, in Lubinets's words, "the longest contemplated by both sides since 2022". Among the evacuated people is a 94-year-old woman, the oldest, and a baby just over one year old, the smallest in the group, as well as the residents' domestic animals.
"What awaits them now is the opportunity to recover and, at last, breathe a sigh of relief after living with the constant fear for their lives", Lubinets has said, who trusts that what happened in Oleshki can be used as a model to devise a new protocol of action for complex humanitarian emergencies.
Oleshki, controlled by Russian forces, has become one of the main symbols of the destruction and famine caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the armed conflict. Tens of thousands of people there are resisting practically without food, electricity or medicine.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, emergency shipments had not reached the city since May 26, and the governor of Kherson, Oleksandr Prokudin, had denounced that the Russians kept "as hostages some 2,000 people, of whom almost 50 are children, forced to survive without food, electricity or water".