Photo: UKRAINIANT PRESIDENTS OFFICE/ZUMA PRESS/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, announced this Sunday (01.05.2022) that a first group of 100 civilians has already been evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for days by Russian forces.
A first group of some 100 people “is already on the way” to the area controlled by Ukraine, Zelensky wrote on his Twitter account, adding that “tomorrow we will meet with them in Zaporizhia,” referring to the region in the south of the country.
“I am grateful to our team. Now, together with the United Nations, it is working on the evacuation of more civilians from the plant,” said the Ukrainian president.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least 100 civilians and a thousand fighters of the Azov Regiment, which is part of the kyiv armed forces.
In addition, in the facilities there are half a thousand wounded, between civilians and soldiers, without access to medical treatment and with increasingly scarce reserves of water and food.
Hours earlier, Russian media reported that 40 civilians, including they 18 men, 14 women and eight children, have been evacuated from the plant territory in three buses and transported to the town of Bezimenne, about 30 kilometers from Mariupol.
The UN confirmed the operation
On the sidelines, the spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of UN humanitarian, Saviano Abreu, confirmed the operation to evacuate a first group of about a hundred civilians at the Azovstal steelworks in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which began on Friday, an operation in which the Red Cross, Russia and Ukraine.
The operation began the day after the meeting between the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and the Ukrainian president, in the who promised to do “everything possible” to evacuate civilians from the Azvostal steelworks in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
ee (afp/reuters/efe)