Mariupol evacuations resume after Ukraine accuses Russia of violating ceasefire
CBC
Ukraine said just 50 civilians were evacuated from a bombed-out steelworks in the city of Mariupol on Friday, accusing Russia of violating a truce intended to allow all those trapped beneath the plant to depart after weeks under siege.
Mariupol has endured the most destructive bombardment of the 10-week-old war, and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant is the last part of the city, a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea, still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address that Ukraine was working on a diplomatic effort to save defenders barricaded inside the steelworks. "Influential intermediaries are involved, influential states," he said, but provided no further details.
Zelensky previously described Russia's blockade of Mariupol as torture and said if Russia killed civilians or troops who could otherwise be released, his government could no longer hold peace talks with Moscow.
UN-brokered evacuation of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in the plant's network of tunnels and bunkers began last weekend before being halted by renewed fighting.
On Friday afternoon, 50 women, children and elderly people were evacuated from the plant, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, adding that the operation would continue on Saturday. The Russian side constantly violated a local ceasefire, she said, making the evacuation very slow.
Russia confirmed the number of evacuees and plan to continue evacuations on Saturday but did not comment on her accusation.
The city's mayor has estimated 200 people remained trapped at the plant with little food or water.
In a video from the plant posted online late on Thursday, an Azov regiment medic who gave his name as Hasan described people dying from wounds and starvation.
Authorities in Mariupol earlier accused Russian forces on Friday of violating the ceasefire at the steelworks by firing at a car involved in evacuation efforts, killing one Ukrainian fighter and wounding six.
Russia did not immediately comment on the city council's online statement. It had previously said humanitarian corridors were in place.
Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia's most recent estimate, are also holed up in a vast maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal steelworks — and they have repeatedly refused to surrender.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the organization "must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes."
People escaping Mariupol typically have to pass through contested areas and many checkpoints — sometimes taking days to reach relative safety in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 230 kilometres to the northwest.