Fleeing civilians describe weeks of brutal Russian bombardments
PEOPLE fleeing besieged Mariupol have described weeks of bombardments and deprivations as they arrived in Ukrainian-held territory.
It comes as relief workers await 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 on Sunday 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 were expected to arrive in Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol, yesterday, 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 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 agreed-upon evacuation routes.
“Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working,” Mr Zelensky said on Sunday in a pre-recorded address published on his Telegram messaging channel.
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.
In the past, Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow’s troops of forcibly relocating civilians from areas they have captured to Russia; Moscow has said the people wanted to go to Russia.
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 Russiancontrolled 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.
They have suffered intense bombardment, including a Russian air strike on a maternity hospital and the bombing of a theatre.
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.
A defender of the plant said Russian forces resumed shelling the plant on
Sunday as soon as some civilians there were evacuated.
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.
It was unclear whether there would be further evacuation attempts.
Before the weekend evacuation, about 1,000 civilians were also believed to be in the sprawling, Soviet-era steel plant, along with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters.
A Ukrainian officer at the plant urged groups such as the UN and the Red Cross to ensure the evacuation of wounded fighters, though he acknowledged that reaching some of the injured is difficult.
“There’s rubble. We have no special equipment. It’s hard for soldiers to pick up slabs weighing tons only with their arms,” Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, said.
“We hear voices of people who are still alive inside shattered buildings.”
Small children are still in the bunkers underneath the plant