The UN announced Tuesday, May 3 the evacuationsuccessfulof 101 civilians stuck for weeks in the Ukrainian industrial complex of Azovstal in Mariupol (southeast), besieged by the Russian army, which launched a new offensive there.
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In Zaporijjia, destination of the convoy, AFP journalists saw at least five buses arrive at a reception center to welcome them. “I am happy and relieved to confirm that 101 civilians have been successfully evacuated from the Azovstal Metallurgical Plant in Mariupol“, said the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine Osnat Lubrani, quoted in a press release.
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“I think of the people who remain trapped”
On Twitter, Osnat Lubrani posted a photograph of her in front of a convoy of more than a dozen buses stopped on a road. “The people I traveled with told me heartbreaking stories of the hell they went through. I think of the people who remain trapped. We will do everything in our power to help them.“, she wrote. According to the UN, this evacuation operation was initiated last Friday, after recent visits by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to Moscow and kyiv.
According to Osnat Lubrani, 58 people also joined the convoy from Mangouch, in the suburbs of Mariupol, and 127 people were accompanied to Zaporijjia, 230 kilometers to the northwest, in territory under the control of Ukrainian forces. Other evacuees decided not to go to Zaporizhia with the convoy, Osnat Lubrani said. The survivors “receive initial humanitarian aid, including health care and psychological care“, she added.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which participated in the evacuations, said in a statement that some of those evacuated were injured. “Similar agreements between the parties are urgently needed to alleviate the immense suffering of civilians caught in the hostilities.said Pascal Hundt, head of the ICRC delegation in Ukraine, in the statement. Some 80 civilians, according to Moscow, or a “hundred“, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, had been evacuated from Azovstal on Sunday. This gigantic steel complex is the last pocket of resistance of the Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, a large port in the south-east almost completely destroyed by the fighting and now almost entirely under Russian control.
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