Nine volunteer drivers from a group of people who worked in the Mariupol direction were detained by the Russian military and are listed as missing, writes CNN, citing a representative of the volunteer group.

“A total of 9 minibus drivers left Zaporozhye to evacuate civilians from the besieged Mariupol. Russian soldiers stopped them and tried to force them to send the buses to Russia. When the drivers refused, they were taken prisoner,” said Alexei Voronin, head of the public organization..

He lost contact with all the drivers except for one..

“All of them carried out the evacuation of people in the direction of Mariupol-Zaporozhye, they were sent on trips on different dates - March 26, 27 and 31. Communication with them was interrupted the next day after check out.. According to the people who managed to evacuate, the Russian military seized vehicles with people in Mariupol from the drivers, the evacuees were taken to the village of Nikolskoye, the drivers themselves were taken away. Some of them are in a pre-trial detention center in Donetsk,” the volunteer added..

One of the drivers managed to quit and, according to him, it became known that the three missing are in Donetsk. They were interrogated by force, fed poorly and kept in appalling conditions.. All the rest were told that they have the right to keep up to 30 days.

A group of volunteers with the participation of Alexei Voronin united at the beginning of the war to help evacuate Ukrainians.

They managed to evacuate more than 2,000 people and deliver more than 200 tons of food, humanitarian aid and medicines to the surrounded Mariupol.

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In the surrounded and sometimes occupied Mariupol, people say that residents of the city are forcibly taken to Russia, documents, phones and sometimes personal belongings are taken away. People are being transported to remote depressed regions of Russia and told they are forbidden to leave the region for at least two years. People are also forcibly taken to Russia from the occupied regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions..