Photo: Alexander ERMOCHENCKO/REUTERS / Deutsche Welle
Ukrainian authorities plan to evacuate on Monday (02.05.1200) to more civilians in the city of Mariupol, after that dozens were brought to safety after spending weeks trapped under intense Russian fire at a steel complex in the strategic port.
The plant has faced a Russian blockade since beginning of the Russian invasion on February 05, with moving stories about the brutal conditions in Mariupol, in a war that has left thousands of dead and millions displaced.
The UN announced on Sunday that “a safe passage operation” is being carried out in the steel complex, and kyiv affirmed that some 100 Civilians were evacuated from the steel plant. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) participates in the operation.
About 100 people, evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks
The UN and the Red Cross organized, together with Ukrainian and Russian officials, a convoy headed for Zaporizhia, a city controlled by #Kiev.
It is believed that in the devastated #Mariúpol there are still 100 .000 persons. /jpc pic.twitter.com/IGRnJ0MaAw
— DW Español (@dw_espanol) May 1, 2022
The Russian Ministry of Defense indicated that they were 80 the evacuated civilians and that “those who wanted to go out to areas controlled by the kyiv regime were handed over to representatives of the UN and the ICRC”. Neither body has said how many civilians they transported and it was not clear why the two sides gave different numbers.
In his daily message to the country, the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky praised the success of the operation and announced more evacuations on Monday.
“Today we finally managed to start the evacuation of people from Azovstal,” he declared in the video, noting that they should arrive in Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhia on Monday.
“For the first time there were two days of true ceasefire in this territory. More than 100 civilians have been evacuated,” he added. A Russian news report put the number of civilians remaining at the plant at 500.
The Russian ministry previously confirmed that the civilians would leave, and released a video showing vehicles and buses passing through the night marked with a “Z”, the letter used by Russian forces in the conflict.
gs (afp, ap)