The United Nations has confirmed that it has launched an operation to evacuate people from a besieged steel plant in Mariupol. UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said on Sunday that the effort to get people out of the vast Azovstal steel plant was being carried out in co-operation with the International Committee of the Red Cross and in coordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials. He described the situation as “very complicated” and gave no further details. About 1,000 soldiers and as many civilians, including the elderly, women and children, are believed to have taken refuge in the labyrinthine tunnel under the steelworks. A woman is sitting with children as displaced people, including civilians who fled the area near the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, arrive at a temporary shelter in the Donetsk region. / REUTERS
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It comes after about 20 civilians, including women and children, were evacuated earlier Sunday in the first ray of hope from the desperate situation at the factory. Ukraine did not say how many fighters were also at the plant, the only part of Mariupol not occupied by Russian forces, but Russia put the number at about 2,000. An estimated 100,000 civilians remain in the besieged city. UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said earlier that the group was in talks with authorities in Moscow and Kyiv, but could not give details of the ongoing evacuation effort “due to the complexity and liquidity of the operation”. “There are, at the moment, ongoing high-level commitments with all governments, Russia and Ukraine, to ensure that you can save civilians and support the evacuation of civilians from the factory,” Abreu said. REUTERS He did not confirm the video posted on social media that allegedly shows UN-marked vehicles in Mariupol. Ukraine has blamed the failure of several previous evacuation attempts on the ongoing Russian bombing. In the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region, where at least half the population has fled the Russian bombing, about 20 elderly people and children carrying bags with their dogs and cats boarded a minivan marked “children evacuated” in Ukrainian. . He rushed to the city of Dnipro as explosions were heard from afar. Russian forces have launched a major military operation to occupy key parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, the industrial heart of the country. Ukrainian forces fought village after village on Saturday to halt Russian advance. Ukrainian forces release video showing women and children hiding in Azovstal steel plant Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported on Saturday that 19 adults and six children had been pulled from the steel plant, but gave no further details. Videos and images from inside the plant showed unknown men with stained bandages. others had open wounds or amputated limbs. In the video, the men said that they only eat once a day and distribute only 1.5 liters of water a day to four people and that the supplies inside the besieged facility are exhausted. In a video overnight speech Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky changed his mind to urge Russian troops not to fight in Ukraine, saying even their generals expected thousands more to die. The president accused Moscow of recruiting new soldiers “with little motivation and little combat experience” so that units that broke out at the start of the war could be thrown back into battle. “Every Russian soldier can still save his life,” Zelensky said. “It is better to survive in Russia than to get lost in our land.”
