Around 100 civilians have been evacuated from the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said, but many more remain trapped in the Azovstal steelworks and are facing a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
The UN had on Sunday negotiated safe passage for some civilians from the plant, the last stronghold of resistance against the Russian attack. However, Russian forces resumed shelling after some of the evacuees left, according to reports on Monday.
Civilians trapped in the bunkers and tunnels of the Azovstal complex are running out of water, food and medicine.
“The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe,” Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereschuk said.
A Ukrainian fighter holed up in Mariupol said up to 200 civilians remained trapped inside bunkers in the Azovstal steel works after the UN evacuation operation.
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, 39, a deputy commander of Ukraine's Azov Regiment, told Reuters his fighters could hear the voices of people trapped in bunkers of the vast industrial complex.
He said they were women, children and elderly people, but that the Ukrainian forces there did not have the mechanised equipment needed to dislodge the rubble, he said.
"We were planning to tear up the bunkers, the entrance to which is blocked, but all night into Monday naval artillery and barrel artillery were firing. All day today aviation has been working, dropping bombs," Mr Palamar said over Zoom.
One evacuee from the steelworks said survivors still trapped inside were running out of food. “Children always wanted to eat. You know, adults can wait,” she said.
President Zelensky said around 100 civilians from Mariupol should arrive in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday. “For the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working,” he said.
Ukraine’s military police said in a Facebook post that the evacuees had arrived in the city, adding: “More than a hundred civilian residents of Mariupol, who were rescued from two months with the defenders of Mariupol in the ‘Azovstali’ underground reservoirs from the bombings of the Russian Federation, arrived to Zaporozhzhia...
“Over a hundred women, children and elderly people were evacuated today.
“They all get what they need – hot food, meds, groceries. Doctors are checking on the victims. Pscyhological assistance is provided to people.”
The Russian army said that 126 people had left Mariupol in safe convoys on Saturday and Sunday.
One evacuee, Natalia Usmanova, 37, who had escaped from the bunker, told Reuters she had been “so worried it would cave in”.
“I had terrible fear,” she added.
Anastasiia Dembytska, who had been evacuated from a different part of the city, said she took advantage of the brief respite in fighting to leave with her nephew, her daughter and her dog.
The chief of the Donetsk regional patrol police said Russian forces were still shelling the steel plant on Monday, even though civilians were inside.
Referring to the UN-negotiated safe passage, Mykhailo Vershynin told The Washington Post: “It’s not clear what the state of the negotiations are, but there are still civilians on the factory territory.”
“Yesterday, as soon as the buses left Azovstal with the evacuees, new shelling began immediately,” said Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the Mariupol mayor.
In the Kyiv region, the bodies of more than 1,200 civilians have been recovered since Russian forces left, regional police chief Andriy Nebytov said.
He urged Ukrainians to report missing people to a hotline to help investigators easily identify the dead. Of the bodies found, 280 have not yet been identified, he said.
