BY: NewsPeddlers
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The
last of Ukrainian civilians trapped in a steel plant in the port city of
Mariupol have now been evacuated, according to Ukraine officials.
Ukraine’s
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday according to Aljazeera
that “all women, children and the elderly” have been brought out from
underground bunkers in the vast steel mill, where they had hid from Russian
attacks with little food, water or medicine.
Vereshchuk
wrote on the Telegram messaging app “This part of the Mariupol humanitarian
operation is over.”
The
steel mill, the final place of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated port
city, has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture
swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine in the 10-week-old war. Hundreds of
Ukrainian fighters are believed to remain there.
Ukraine’s
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a late night address, said that more than 300
civilians had been rescued from the plant and pledged to continue the
“extremely difficult but essential efforts” to evacuate the trapped fighters.
“We
took all civilians out of the Azovstal plant and are now preparing for the
second stage of the evacuation mission to evacuate those who are wounded and
medics,” he said. “Of course, we are working on evacuating our military, all
the heroes who are defending Mariupol.”
He added that authorities would also help
residents elsewhere in Mariupol and surrounding settlements to safety.
SOURCE: ALJAZEERA