A BBC reporter in Lviv, Joe Inwood, has reported that about 100 Ukrainian civilians, rescued from a huge industrial complex in the port of Mariupol, are to arrive in the city of Zaporizhzhia this morning. Zaporizhzhia is controlled by Ukraine.
"Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he hopes evacuations from Mariupol will continue today, if conditions allow. The Ukrainian government says around 1,000 civilians remain trapped in the steel plant, as well as hundreds of wounded soldiers", Inwood said.
"This was the moment the world had been talking about for weeks. Time and again humanitarian corridors for the civilians stuck under the Azovstal steelworks had been proposed. Time and again they had failed".
"But, under a shroud of secrecy, yesterday around 100 did manage to make it out. They emerged from the sprawling tunnels, many of them needing help over the wasteland that greeted them. Once free, they were loaded onto buses and taken to a Russian-controlled village - a source of some concern".
"But, speaking in his nightly address, President Zelensky said they would eventually be taken to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia".
"This is a significant diplomatic achievement, for both the Red Cross and the United Nations, and will offer some hope that negotiations can bear fruit in this most brutal of wars".
"The situation is still desperate for around 1,000 civilians who remain trapped inside the plant, and the Ukrainian soldiers there. President Zelensky said further evacuations would be carried out if conditions allowed", he added.
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