MEXICO CITY: Mexican and Ukrainian officials on Saturday separately urged Israel to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza to let people out as both countries work to repatriate their citizens from the area.
Responding to appeals from the family of Barbara Lango, a Mexican working for aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Mexico’s foreign minister Alicia Barcena said she had been in touch with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for help.
“We’re trying to get her out via Egypt, but Israel is not authorizing a humanitarian corridor, nor is it allowing anybody to get out,” she said in a post on social media platform X.
“This is an urgent appeal to Israel because even war has rules,” Barcena added.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said Ukraine’s foreign ministry sent a note of protest to Israel after Ukrainian citizens were not allowed to evacuate from Gaza on Saturday.
“We do not understand why Ukrainian citizens are not allowed to evacuate, as well as other citizens of foreign countries,” Lubinets said. “Especially – as everyone emphasises – women and children were the first to ask for evacuation.”
Separately, Ukraine’s embassy in Israel said on social media that 207 Ukrainian citizens, including 63 children, were evacuated from Tel Aviv to Romania on Saturday and another flight to take 155 people out of Israel was planned for Sunday.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attacks by Hamas on Israel, calling for world solidarity with Israel.
Mexico’s foreign ministry has also condemned the Hamas attacks, and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he wants to keep his country neutral in the conflict.
On Thursday, the Mexican government said hundreds of its nationals were still waiting to get out of Israel. – Reuters
