Barely a hundred people, most of them elderly, women and children, manage to leave the Mariupol steel factory after two months of Russian siege
After two months in the hell of the Azovstal metallurgical plant, 101 civilians from Mariupol have come back to life. They did so thanks to the resumption of evacuations led by the United Nations and the International Red Cross. This Tuesday, they arrived in Zaporizhzhya after a 48-hour journey to cover the 200 kilometers that separated them from this city under Ukrainian control. A story with a happy ending in the middle of one of the bloodiest episodes of this war: the battle of Mariúpol.
“The worst part was that you could hardly breathe. The feeling of suffocation was permanent, comparable only to the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen to us,” recalls Liana, 44, who died in one of the bunkers on Feb. 24. of the huge metallurgical complex and only came out on May 1. “The men of the Azov battalion told us there was an agreement for a safe exit and we left immediately. The Russians were waiting for us outside. It’s impossible to calculate how many people are still inside, it’s a labyrinth of shelters,” Liliana explains excitedly after the fighting.
The UN described the process as “successful” and the ICRC assured that they succeeded in safely removing a total of 159 people, including 101 from the Azovstal factory who “have seen the sunlight after two months” underground and more once 58 who joined the convoy in Manhush, outside Mariupol. The international organization expected there to be even more, so it asked Kiev and Moscow for urgent agreements to reach the people who are still underground.
Valentina, 70, breathes calmly and looks around in a daze. He is one of those who spent these two months in the steel mill and is touched to recall the moment when “a reporter came to us and told us that an evacuation was being negotiated. He also brought us diapers for the babies and some food. Since we heard those words, a door to hope opened for us,” he says with tears in his eyes. Food and water ran out over the days and “he always reserved the best part of the ration for the little ones.” In the shelter where Valentina lived, 72 people lived together. “Some tried to escape and we never heard from them again,” he says.
Among the newcomers are mainly women, children and the elderly. There are no men and survivors like Valentina, for example they do not know where their children are. A supermarket parking lot on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhya has become the arrival point for Ukrainians looking to escape the occupied territories. The shopping center is operating normally, but where customers used to park, there is now a large tent serving meals and aid stations from UN agencies, the ICRC or Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
After the evacuations over the weekend, when 100 people left, the process was halted on Monday and fighting broke out again. This factory is the latest focal point of armed resistance in Mariupol, and Russia wants to suffocate it to declare victory and give continuity to the Ukrainian zone it occupies in Crimea and Donbas.
The agreement allows civilians from Azovstal to leave their shelters, then they had to “go to a Russian camp where they interrogated us, they checked our phones, they took our fingerprints… A kind of filter. They threatened us and told us that we were fully booked and that it would be better for us to leave Ukraine because if they conquer the whole country, they would kill us,” says Tatiana, “a young woman of 40 years,” as she wants to introduce her to us. After identification and approval, they have to choose the area to which they will be led. Most chose Zaporizhzhya, where they were protected by international organizations. “We have seen many people walking along the way, but the Russians don’t let anyone up who hasn’t been through their fields before,” he says.
With artillery fire and aerial bombardment, the Russian army attacked (again) the already dilapidated Azovstal steel complex mid-afternoon this Tuesday, in what Ukrainian authorities considered to be the prelude to the latest attack on the last resistance stronghold in Mariupol.
Moscow did not comment on whether that was his strategy. He limited the attacks to a supposedly surgical operation against “firing positions” allegedly identified by Ukrainian fighters of the Azov battalion “using” the ceasefire of the past few days. With the war focused on the east and south of the country, another attack in the same region of Donetsk left at least ten people dead and fifteen injured. The Russian army again hit (it did this on March 13) the Avdiivka chemical plant.
Macron and Johnson
Meanwhile, diplomatic activity continues to stagnate. Emmanuel Macron spoke again by phone with Vladimir Putin this Tuesday. The first time he has done so since his re-election as President of France. More than two hours of dialogue that goes beyond a Moscow demand and reproach. The Russian leader, according to a Kremlin statement, demanded an end to the western rearmament of Kiev and criticized his interlocutor for “ignoring Ukraine’s war crimes”. The Elysee did not comment. Boris Johnson became the first leader to speak virtually before the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday. The UK has pledged another $375 million in aid to Kiev.
Source: La Verdad
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