Evacuations from Mariupol steel plant underway

Ukraine began evacuating civilians from a steel plant outside of the port city of Mariupol on Sunday, aiming to get about 1,000 Ukrainians out who had hunkered down inside the facility to hide from advancing Russian troops.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted the first round of people, about 100 Ukrainians, were leaving the Azovstal steel plant in southeastern Ukraine and were headed to Zaporizhzhia, a city on the Dnieper River about 140 miles away.

“Tomorrow we’ll meet them in Zaporizhzhia. Grateful to our team!” Zelensky wrote Sunday morning. “Now they, together with [United Nations] are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant.”

Ukraine announced late last week that officials were hoping to evacuate about 1,000 citizens who had holed themselves up in the steel plant out amid a new Russian offensive in Mariupol and the eastern part of the country. Around 2,000 Ukrainian troops are reportedly also inside the steel plant.

The city of Mariupol has been battered by Russian shelling and bombing, with Ukrainian officials estimating that thousands of residents may have died in the attacks. As many as 100,000 people may still be in or around the region of Mariupol.

Russia has declared victory over the city, and some holdouts have been taking cover inside Azovstal.

Russia agreed “in principle” to an evacuation of the steel plant ahead of the weekend.

United Nations humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu told The Associated Press the evacuations of the steel plant were being conducted by the UN and International Red Cross in coordination with Ukrainian officials. The convoy started operations to evacuate on Friday.

Russian news agency TASS reported 46 people, including eight children and 14 women, were evacuated from the plant on Sunday by buses.

Ukraine’s Azov regiment also called for the evacuation of wounded soldiers and troops from the steel plant in a message posted on Telegram.

Deputy Commander Sviatoslav Palamar said in a video on the social media site that he doesn’t know why Ukrainian fighters are not included in evacuation orders, according to a translation from the AP.