Refugees describe Mariupol suffering
PEOPLE fleeing besieged Mariupol have described weeks of bombardments and deprivations as they arrived in Ukrainianheld territory.
Relief workers were awaiting the first group of civilians freed from a steel plant that is the last redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the devastated port city.
More than 100 civilians from the plant were expected to arrive in Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles north-west of Mariupol, on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 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 city on the Sea of Azov and other places have broken down.
People fleeing Russian-occupied areas in the past have said their vehicles were fired on, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of shelling agreedupon evacuation routes.
At least some of the people evacuated from the plant were apparently taken to a village controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, though Russian state media reported they would be allowed to continue on to Ukrainian-held territory if they wanted to.
While official evacuations have often faltered, many people have managed to flee Mariupol under their own steam in recent weeks. Others are unable to escape.
“People without cars cannot leave. They’re desperate,” said Olena Gibert, who was among those arriving at a UN-backed reception centre in Zaporizhzhia in dusty and often damaged private cars.
“You need to go get them. People have nothing. We had nothing.” She said many people still in Mariupol wish to escape the Russian-controlled city but cannot say so openly amid the atmosphere of constant pro-Russian propaganda.
A siege of the city since the early days of the war has trapped civilians in terrible conditions, with scarce access to food, water, medicine and electricity.
Anastasiia Dembytska, who took advantage of the brief ceasefire around the evacuation of civilians from the steel plant to leave with her daughter, nephew and dog, told the Associated Press (AP) her family survived by cooking on a makeshift stove and drinking well water.
She said she could see the steel plant from her window, when she dared to look out.
“We could see the rockets flying” and clouds of smoke over the plant, she said.
Denys Shlega, commander of the 12th Operational Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, said in a televised interview that several hundred civilians remain trapped alongside nearly 500 wounded soldiers and “numerous” dead bodies. “Several dozen small children are still in the bunkers underneath the plant,” Mr Shlega said.