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| 20 Civilians Evacuated From Besieged Plant In Ukraine's Mariupol |
| 2022-05-01 |
| [NDTV] Mariupol: At least 20 civilians, including several children, were able to leave a badly battered steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday in what could be the start of a long-awaited, larger evacuation of the last holdout in the Russian-held city. Ukrainian fighters of the Azov regiment, which has been defending the site, said the 20 civilians had left, possibly for the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) 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 in the works, though it was unclear whether Saturday's evacuation was UN-led and whether further evacuations were imminent. There were no immediate details on the condition of the evacuees. But the fact that the evacuation took place at all was significant. Conditions in a vast network of tunnels under the Azovstal steel plant -- where hundreds of civilians are believed to still be sheltering, along with Ukrainian fighters -- are said to be brutal, and earlier efforts at evacuations had been futile. 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 Russia continues targeting infrastructure and supply lines deep in the west of the country. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |