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KYIV – At least 20 civilians including several children were able to leave a badly battered steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol yesterday in what could be the start of a long-awaited, larger evacuation of the last holdout in the Russian-held city.
Earlier efforts at evacuations from the Azovstal steel plant – where local fighters say they and hundreds of civilians are still sheltering in brutal conditions – had been futile.
Ukrainian fighters of the Azov regiment, which has been defending the site, said 20 civilians had left, possibly for the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, about 225km to the northwest.
Russia’s Tass news agency carried a similar report, though putting the number of evacuees at 25.
A United Nations-planned evacuation had been planned, though it was unclear whether yesterday’s evacuation was UN-led and whether further evacuations were imminent. There were no immediate details on the condition of the evacuees.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video yesterday evening that Kyiv was “doing everything to ensure that the evacuation mission from Mariupol is carried out”.
Fresh satellite imagery by private US firm Maxar taken on Friday showed a devastated Mariupol, with almost all of Azovstal destroyed.
The apparent ceasefire in Mariupol took place as Russian attacks continued unabated across Ukraine, most heavily in the fiercely disputed eastern regions, but with attacks as far west as Odessa, on the Black Sea coast.
Odessa’s regional governor Maxim Marchenko said a Russian missile strike had destroyed the airport runway, as Moscow continues targeting infrastructure and supply lines deep in the west of the country.
There were no victims from the airport strike near the historic city of one million people.
Near Bucha, the town near Kyiv that has become synonymous with allegations of Russian war crimes, Ukrainian police yesterday reported finding three bodies shot in the head with their hands tied.
The three bodies found in a pit were “brutally killed” by Russian soldiers – each shot in the head, the police force said in a statement.
“The victims' hands were tied, cloths were covering their eyes, and some were gagged. There are traces of torture on the corpses,” it said. – AFP, May 1, 2022