20,000 have managed to escape Mariupol — Zelensky aide

By AP 16 March 2022, 12:45 am

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A senior Ukrainian official says about 20,000 people have managed to leave the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a deputy head of office of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says that the evacuees left Mariupol in private vehicles via a humanitarian corridor on Tuesday.

He says that 570 of some 4,000 vehicles that left the city have reached the city of Zaporizhzhia some 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest while others will spend the night in various towns along the way.

A Ukrainian soldier in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 12, 2022. (AP/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Mariupol, a strategic port city of 430,000 on the Sea of Azov, has been besieged by Russian troops for more than 10 days, facing heavy shelling that has killed more than 2,300 people and left residents struggling for food, water, heat and medicine.