MOSCOW, August 23 (RIA Novosti) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday it is ready to help residents of the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk but urged Russia and Ukraine to respect the independent humanitarian action of the organization.
Earlier on Friday, some 200 Russian trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed the border into Ukraine allegedly without clearance by Ukrainian customs officials or a Red Cross escort.
“The manner in which aid convoy from Russia arrived in Luhansk today has complicated this aid operation,” the ICRC said in its Twitter blog.
“We encourage both Ukraine and Russia to respect the neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian action of the ICRC,” one of the tweets said.
“Our team in Luhansk says people need water, food, medicine. We are ready to help,” the ICRC said.
Moscow said Ukrainian authorities had been holding up for days the delivery of humanitarian aid to the trapped civilians in besieged Luhansk. The Russian Foreign Ministry added that Kiev’s dragging on the process of delivering Russian humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine seemed to be an attempt to create a situation when there is no one left to be helped.
ICRC Head of Operations for Europe and Central Asia Laurent Corbaz said Thursday he regretted that the Ukrainian customs service failed to inspect the Russian humanitarian cargo in a timely fashion, thus delaying the humanitarian mission.
The convoy is carrying about 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid, including 400 tons of grain, 100 tons of sugar and 54 tons of medication, along with other humanitarian cargo. The delivery was organized to address humanitarian concerns in the affected Ukrainian regions.
