An estimated 2000 Ukrainian fighters were said to be holed up in the plant. 9News
forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill that represented the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as a convoy carrying scores of civilians evacuated from the plant over the weekend arrived in the relative safety of a Ukrainian-controlled city.
An estimated 2000 Ukrainian fighters were said to be holed up in the plant. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a few hundred civilians also remained there. And it was unclear whether a new evacuation would be organised. The assault began almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant but seal it off.Marina, a Ukrainian woman, waits in a car at a centre for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
"Over the past days, traveling with the evacuees, I have heard mothers, children and frail grandparents speak about the trauma of living day after day under unrelenting heavy shelling and the fear of death, and with extreme lack of water, food and sanitation," the UN's Lubrani said. "They spoke of the hell they have experienced since this war started, seeking refuge in the Azovstal plant.
The pounding of the steel plant resumed after the weekend evacuation. Vadim Astafyev, a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman, said that Ukrainian fighters used the cease-fire to take up new positions at the plant. People wait to be processed upon their arrival at a reception centre for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
But so far, Russia's troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.
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