Evacuation under way from steel plant in siege city

A LONG-AWAITED effort to evacuate people from a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was under way yesterday, the United Nations said.

UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said the operation to bring people out of the sprawling Azovstal steel plant was being carried out with the International Committee for the Red Cross and in co-ordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials.

As many as 100,000 people are believed to be in blockaded Mariupol still, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era steel plant – the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.

Mr Abreu called the situation “very complex” and would not give further details.

Like other evacuations, the success of the Mariupol mission depends on Russia and its forces in a long series of checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian ones.

Zaporizhzhia, a city about 1400 miles north-west of Mariupol, is the expected destination.

The UN said the convoy to evacuate civilians started on Friday, travelling some 140 miles (230km) before reaching the plant in Mariupol on Saturday morning.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a tweet yesterday that the first group of about 100 people were heading to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

“Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia. Grateful to our team! Now they, together with #UN, are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant,” he tweeted.

People who have fled Russianoccupied areas have at times described their vehicles being fired on. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russian forces of shelling evacuation routes.