May 1 (Reuters) – Around 100 civilians were evacuated from the Azovstal Mariupol steelworks in southeastern Ukraine on Sunday in an operation coordinated with Kyiv, Moscow and the UN, Volodimir said Zelensky.
“Recognition to our team! They are working with (the United Nations) to evacuate other civilians from the factory,” the Ukrainian president wrote on Twitter.
Civilians are expected to reach the northwestern town of Zaporizhia, which is under Ukrainian control, on Monday, he said.
The Russian Defense Minister, quoted by the Russian agency Interfax, reported 80 civilians evacuated. They were taken care of by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said.
On Saturday, a first group of around twenty civilians had been extracted from the rubble of the steelworks, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov where the Russian army declared itself victorious on April 21 last after nearly two months of a destructive siege.
During the Angelus prayer on Sunday at the Vatican, Pope Francis again appealed for the opening of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to flee Mariupol, a city “barbarically bombarded”.
Mariupol is a strategic city for the Kremlin, which intends to link Crime to the regions of Donbass (East), partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, hundreds of Ukrainians – military and civilians – are still in the steelworks, a vast complex dating from the Soviet era which houses tunnels and bunkers. They survive on little or no drinking water and food, huddled in blankets.
A Reuters photographer saw on Sunday about fifty civilians arrive by bus from Mariupol in the village of Bezimenne, about thirty kilometers to the east, where a temporary tent camp has been set up. The convoy, according to the photographer, was made up of UN vehicles and Russian military vehicles.
The municipality of Mariupol said for its part that an evacuation operation of civilians from other areas of the city had been postponed Monday 05:00 GMT (08:00 local time). (Report Max Hunder, French version Jean-Michel Blot)