More than 40 buses carrying thousands of people who fled Mariupol arrived in the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Friday in what the Red Cross said was the largest evacuation of civilians from the besieged city since the war began.
A Ukrainian Red Cross official who was on the convoy told The Independent 48 buses had transported a total of 3,500 people, mostly from Mariupol, who had fled the worst of the fighting to Russian-occupied territory, where they had since been stuck. Also in the convoy were five vehicles, including two transport trucks, carrying people who escaped the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, northwest of Mariupol.
