Donetsk Evacuees Kept Waiting For Hours On Freezing Buses In Russia

A less than 200 kilometer journey turned into an ordeal lasting more than 12 hours for dozens of residents of Donetsk and its environs. On February 18, Russia-backed separatists began carrying out an order to evacuate women, children, and the elderly, saying that Ukrainian armed forces were coming to attack them -- a claim flatly denied by Kyiv. Separatist authorities said that as many as 700,000 would be bused across the border and temporarily accommodated in Russia. Before noon on February 19, Current Time correspondents caught up with passengers on buses that were part of a convoy in Taganrog in Russia’s Rostov region. By that stage, passengers said they had been kept on buses for hours with young children and frail relatives without food, water, bathroom facilities, or even anyone to ask about what will happen to them.