Last Sunday (1st) civilians evacuated from Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol arrived in the Ukrainian government-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia (3rd) on Tuesday afternoon.
In total, the convoy organized by the UN and the Red Cross reached its destination with about 150 people, 69 of whom were refugees, in the tunnels and underground bunkers of Azovstal, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol.
In a speech welcoming the evacuees at the Zaporizhzhia shopping center, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “During the route, several cars of the fleeing people joined the convoy.” Said.
A total of 101 people were removed from the steel mill last Sunday, but 32 remained in Mariupol.
Meanwhile, the deputy commander of the far-right militia Azov Battalion, Svyatoslav Palamar, said that Russian forces had begun the offensive to seize Azovstal. “The Russians are trying to enter the compound,” he added.
According to Palamar, two women were killed in the early morning bomb attack on the steel mill. Until last Monday (2), at least 200 civilians, including 20 children, remained refugees in the complex’s tunnels and underground bunkers.
The conquest of Mariupol, one of the most important cities in the Donetsk region, was crucial to Moscow’s goal of establishing a land corridor between the annexed Crimea and the rebellious areas of eastern Ukraine.
Mariupol Town Hall estimates that more than 20,000 people died during the Russian siege of the city. “They did everything here, they destroyed the city. Putin has already defeated Hitler, he can be proud of himself,” Mayor Vadym Boichenko said on Tuesday.
He also denounced the forcible deportation of about 40,000 people to the Russian border, claiming that Mariupol residents were forced to remove rubble from the streets and cremate the bodies of killed civilians. “The Russians are hiding their crimes,” he said.
source: Noticias
