Humanitarian organizations are working to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, with hundreds of people still believed to be trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of Ukrainian troops in the city.
A group of around 100 civilians were evacuated from the factory complex on Sunday and were due to arrive in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia, 230 km northwest of Mariupol, on Monday morning.
“For the first time, we had two days of a ceasefire on this territory, and we managed to take out more than 100 civilians – women, children,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address.
People still stuck there were running out of water, food and medicine as Russian forces hemmed them into the industrial complex, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter from weeks of Russian bombardment.
One evacuee accompanied by young children said survivors were fast running out of food.
“Children always wanted to eat. You know, adults can wait,” she said.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said: “The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe.”
Footage from inside the steelworks showed members of the Azov regiment helping civilians through rubble and on to a bus, but hundreds of other civilians remain trapped inside.
