AMN
People fleeing besieged Mariupol described weeks of bombardments and deprivation as they arrived today in Ukrainian-held territory, where officials and relief workers anxiously awaited the first group of civilians freed from a steel plant that is the last redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the devastated port city.
Video posted online yesterday by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with small children climbing over a steep pile of rubble from the sprawling Azovstal Steel Plant and eventually boarding a bus.
More than 100 civilians from the plant are expected to arrive in Zaporizhzhia, about 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The evacuation, if successful, would represent rare progress in easing the human cost of the almost 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors out of the Sea of Azov city and other places have broken down, with Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of shooting and shelling along agreed-upon evacuation routes.