The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is cooperating with the United Nations in an ongoing operation to evacuate people from Mariupol and the besieged Azovstal steel plant, the ICRC said in a statement. “The ICRC confirms that a safe passage operation is underway, in coordination with the UN and the parties to the conflict. The motorcade for the evacuation of civilians started on April 29, covered about 230 kilometers and arrived at the factory in Mariupol on Saturday morning, local time, according to the announcement. “The ICRC insists that details cannot be disclosed until the situation allows, as it could seriously endanger the safety of civilians and escorts. Competent local authorities are contacting citizens for practical details.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted on Sunday that “the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal has begun.” “The first group of about 100 people is already heading to the controlled area,” he added. The Mariupol city council said on Sunday that there was an “opportunity” to evacuate citizens from the besieged city of Mariupol. The council urged the crowd to gather at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) near a shopping mall called “Port City” to evacuate them to the southern part of Zaporizhzhia. “If you have relatives or acquaintances in Mariupol, try to contact them by all means. Call, text and say that it is possible to go to Zaporozhye, where it is safe,” the council told the Telegram. “We pray that everything works,” he added. A local Telegram channel said earlier that by 3pm local time, a “green corridor” would be open to citizens wishing to enter “enemy-controlled territory in the Kamensky area”. There are still about 100,000 people in Mariupol, although most of the city has been severely damaged by weeks of bombing and airstrikes by Russian forces. Ukrainian officials gave more details about the evacuation of civilians trapped in the steep Azovstal plant. “Today is the third day of a special operation we call the ‘Azovstal evacuation,’” said David Arahamia, an adviser to President Zelensky. “Since the beginning of the war, since the beginning of the siege of Azovstal, we have been able to withdraw more than 100 civilians – young children, women and the elderly.” “Sorry, we were silent. We really wanted everything to go well. Our silence was to get people out alive and unharmed. More than 100 people have been evacuated and the evacuation continues,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Ukrainian television. “All this happened thanks to the control of the President of Ukraine Zelensky, Antonio Guterres and the International Committee of the Red Cross, for which we are very, very grateful.” Another context: The Azovstal steel plant, which has been heavily bombed by Russia in recent weeks, is located in Mariupol. Hundreds of people, including dozens injured, are believed to be inside the steel plant. The Russian news agency TASS reports that according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, 80 civilians have now been rescued from the “ground” of the Azovstal plant and evacuated to a Russian-controlled complex a few miles away. It is not clear if any of them come from the factory itself, where hundreds of civilians have been bombed for weeks. “Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal plant by Russian troops who wanted to flee to areas controlled by the Kiev regime have been handed over to representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” the ministry said. The report was followed by comments from a Ukrainian commander inside the plant, who said some civilians had been evacuated from the steelworks following the ceasefire. He hoped that these civilians, all women and children, would go to the “agreed destination” of Zaporizhia, said Captain Svyatoslav Palamar. CNN’s Kostan Nechyporenko contributed to this report.
