About 20 civilians leave the steel mills of Azovstal, where the last Ukrainian troops are entrenched in the Black Sea port of Mariupol.
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An organization of 20 civilians is leaving the Azovstal metallurgical plants, where the last Ukrainian troops are entrenched in the Black Sea port of Mariupol, it said on Saturday.
“Twenty civilians, women and young people (. . . ) have been moved to a suitable location and we hope they will be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, in controlled territory across Ukraine,” said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment.
They were still scouring the rubble in search of civilians to rescue after a night of Russian shelling there, he added, in a video posted on Telegram.
Earlier Saturday, a correspondent for Russia’s TASS news firm reported from the city that 25 civilians, plus six young men under the age of 14, had left the scene.
“All night, enemy artillery shelled the site,” Palamar added.
“The ceasefire that started at 6:00 am (03:00 GMT) only started at 11:00 am. Since then, both sides have respected it,” he added.
“The evacuation convoy we were expecting at 6:00 a. m. he didn’t arrive until 6:25 p. m.
“The Azov Regiment is clearing the rubble to get the civilians out,” Palamar said. “We hope that this procedure will continue and we will be able to evacuate all civilians. “
No attempt to evacuate other people from the Azovstal has so far been successful.
– Heavy bombing Friday –
Palamar added that at the moment there is no search to evacuate the wounded for repair in the Territory under Ukrainian control.
Several hundred Ukrainian infantrymen and civilians have taken refuge in the labyrinth of Soviet-era underground tunnels beneath the Azovstal metallurgical plant, many of whom need medical attention.
The Ukrainian presidency said Friday that the evacuation of some civilians was planned for that day.
An AFP team on a trip to Mariupol organized by the Russian army heard violent shelling at the Azovstal site on Friday from morning until mid-afternoon.
In the afternoon, the explosions occurred just seconds apart and some were powerful.
The most recent photographs of Maxar Technologies’ satellite photographs, taken on Friday, show that almost all of the metal plant’s buildings have been destroyed.
Some roofs have been drilled or collapsed, some buildings reduced to rubble.
A U. N. representative in Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani, said earlier this week she would travel to the central city of Zaporizhzhia to prepare for a “hopeful” evacuation.
U. N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday during a stopover in Kiev that the U. N. was doing everything imaginable to ensure the evacuation of civilians from the “apocalypse” in Mariupol.
Russia said last week it had completely taken over the strategic port city, with the exception of the huge commercial area of Azovstal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the blockade of mills.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned that if Russian forces killed the last remaining troops there, peace talks would end.
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