The families of Mariupol defenders evacuated from Azovstal do not know where they are now and in what conditions the occupiers are holding them.
This was announced at a briefing by Sandra Krotevych, the sister of Major Bohdan Krotevych, Chief of Staff, First Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment.
"My brother - I do not know where he is, he was evacuated, and in what condition he is now, I can not say. He did not get in touch," she said.
Krotevych appealed to the media not to remain silent.
"This whole evacuation is not a return home. The boys are not at home. We don't know where they are, what their conditions are. We really hope that the russian side treats them in accordance with the Geneva Convention, international law, as Ukraine is behaving all the time with russian prisoners of war," she said.
The wife of Donetsk Border Guard Officer Olena Chornobay also joined the call on the world community to help bring the fighters home, including the bodies of the dead.
Natalka Zarytska, the wife of a soldier of the Azov Regiment, said that the last time her husband got in touch was on May 17.
"At this time it is unknown where he is, whether he is alive, whether he was tortured or subjected to torture," she said.
On May 17, Zarytska's husband wrote her a report that 24 of his 32 brothers in the platoon had died. 17 of them died in one air strike by a phosphorus bomb. That the bomb killed 70 of our defenders. Eight survived, but only one was not injured.
Zarytska added that everyone was expecting extraction, but the miracle did not happen.
"The departure of our heroes from Azovstal is not the end. Only the beginning of a new stage of the struggle," she said.
Defenders of Mariupol remained at the plant until they received an order to stop defending the city and save the lives of the fighters. The fighters also carried out a preliminary order to draw russian forces in and allow the Ukrainian army to regroup, train more personnel and receive a large number of weapons from partner countries. Soldiers of the Azov Regiment, Marines of the 36th Brigade, border guards, and law enforcement officers remained at the plant. Thanks to their defense, about 20,000 enemy personnel were not allowed to be transferred. Thus, the russian federation failed to quickly capture Zaporozhye, to create conditions for the encirclement of the united forces.
On May 16, the MID, the UAF, the National Guard, and the Border Guard Service jointly launched an operation to rescue defenders of Mariupol blocked on the territory of the Azovstal plant. The commanders were the last to leave the plant. The soldiers were taken to the temporarily occupied territories. 53 seriously injured people were evacuated to a medical facility in occupied Novoazovsk for medical treatment, and another 211 people were taken to occupied Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor. An exchange procedure will be carried out to return them home. The State Duma of russia has already begun to say that they may ban the exchange.
According to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar, there was no other formula for rescuing the fighters than the one used. The operation to return the defenders home continues. It is planned to exchange our seriously wounded servicemen after their condition stabilizes.