The last of the Ukrainian civilians trapped in a steel plant in the port city of Mariupol have now been evacuated, according to officials.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday that “all women, children and the elderly” have been brought out from underground bunkers in the vast steel mill, where they had hidden from Russian attacks with little food, water or medicine.
“This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation is over,” Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The steel mill, the final pocket of Ukrainians fighting in the devastated port city, has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine in the 10-week-old war. Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters are thought to remain inside.
The whereabouts of the evacuees are not yet clear, but Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said this part of the humanitarian operation was now complete. In the past, it has taken days for those evacuated to reach Ukrainian-held territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the plant, although the Russian defence ministry gave a much lower number, saying 51 people had been evacuated over a period of three days.
Zelensky said diplomatic efforts were continuing to get military personnel out of Mariupol.
Capturing Mariupol is important to Russian troops because it will allow them to complete a land bridge between Crimea and the Donbas region, as well as giving them full control of more than 80% of Ukraine's Black Sea coastline.
Weeks of Russian bombardment have left Mariupol in ruins, while the steel mill has been largely destroyed. During pauses in the fighting, evacuations of civilians began last weekend, brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Russian-backed separatists have also reported a total of 176 civilians evacuated from the plant. It was not clear if civilian men were still there.
Russian forces, backed by tanks and artillery, tried again on Saturday to storm Azovstal, seeking to dislodge the last Ukrainian defenders, according to Ukraine’s military command.
