Ukraine says 765 Mariupol residents fled besieged city in private vehicles

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says 765 residents managed to make it out of Mariupol in private vehicles today.

Iryna Vereshchuk says the residents reached Zaporizhzhia, a city 140 miles (226 kilometers) to the northwest.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said a team with three vehicles and nine staff members plans to get into Mariupol to evacuate residents. The Red Cross says it couldn’t carry out the operation yesterday because it did not receive assurances that the route was safe. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.

By this evening, there was no word if the Red Cross convoy had reached Mariupol, scene of some of the war’s worst attacks. Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city on the Sea of Azov, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and facing dire shortages of water, food, fuel, and medicine.

The Mariupol city council said earlier today that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 52 miles (84 kilometers) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol yesterday, city officials said.