At least 1,000 civilians, including women and children, are sheltering underneath the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol alongside the city’s remaining defense forces that are refusing to surrender to Russian troops.
Video released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday showed women and children purportedly sheltering in the basement of the sprawling industrial complex in the southeastern Ukrainian city. The Mariupol City Council said on Monday that Russian heavy bombs continue to pummel the steel plant, where at least 1,000 civilians are trapped.
“Mostly the [civilians] are women with children and old people,” the City Council said on Telegram.
In the video shared by Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about a dozen people are visible in the shelter. Women interviewed in the video say the trapped children are hungry and distressed but happy to be alive. The ministry added that the people are “short of food, water, and medicine, and need immediate safe evacuation.”
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Thousands of civilians, including women, children and elderly, remain in Mariupol under Russian bombardment. Many hide in bomb shelters along Ukrainian forces, their wounded and dead. People are short of food, water, and medicine, and need immediate safe evacuation.#SaveMariupol pic.twitter.com/QchWTfpafI
— MFA of Ukraine ?? (@MFA_Ukraine) April 18, 2022
The Washington Examiner could not confirm the authenticity of the video or the City Council’s claims.
The video was originally posted by the Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian armed forces on Telegram.
The commander of the battalion in Mariupol, Lt. Col. Denys Prokopenko, said on Monday that Russian forces are “willingly” firing on the steel plant. Prokopenko said that among the civilians sheltering are the families of the remaining Ukrainian defense forces in the city.
Prokopenko urged for evacuation corridors to open for civilians hiding in the steel plant in Mariupol.
The port city of Mariupol is said to be on the verge of falling to Russian forces, with only a small number of defenders left in the city.
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Ukraine’s prime minister said over the weekend that the remaining defenders in Mariupol, who have had a 53-day resistance to Russian forces, will “fight to the end.”
“City still has not fallen. There is still our military forces, our soldiers. So they will fight to the end,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
