Europe 1 with AFP 09:37, April 29, 2022
The Ukrainian presidency has announced that an "operation" to evacuate civilians" who are in the Azovstal factory besieged by Russian troops in Mariupol is "envisaged" for this Friday. The city has indeed been almost entirely destroyed by the Russians, who took control of it after weeks of siege.
An "operation" to evacuate civilians holed up in the Azovstal factory besieged by Russian troops in Mariupol, in the south-east of Ukraine, is "envisaged" for this Friday, announced the Ukrainian presidency.
"An operation to get civilians out of the factory is planned for today," the presidency said in a statement on Friday.
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Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, including dozens of children, are stranded, according to kyiv, in this huge Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, with the last Ukrainian fighters in the city, almost completely destroyed and controlled by Russian forces after weeks of siege.
A "critical" situation
A commander of the Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in Azovstal, Serguiï Volynsky had indicated Thursday that a Russian bomb fell on the underground field hospital set up on the site by the Ukrainians.
“All the medical infrastructure, the operating room was wiped out. Many of our guys were killed instantly. Many of the injured received new injuries. The situation is becoming even more critical,” he said. in an interview with the Ukrainian site Levy Bereg.
The UN coordinator in Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani, announced on Thursday that she was leaving for the south of the country to prepare an attempt to evacuate Mariupol.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, visiting kyiv on Thursday, assured his side that the organization was doing "everything possible" to evacuate civilians stuck in the "apocalypse" of Mariupol, which had a half -million people before the Russian invasion launched at the end of February.