Mar 15, 2022: More than 160 private cars have left the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, with local officials saying it would be the first successful evacuation since Russian troops laid siege to the city more than two weeks ago.

“It is known that by 13:00 [11:00 GMT] more than 160 private cars had managed to leave Mariupol,” the city council said on its official telegram channel on Monday, adding that the convoy had already left the city of Berdyansk and was moving towards Zaporizhzhia.

The council also said that a “regime of silence” was being observed in the established humanitarian corridor.

The city has been under constant bombardment since it came under siege by Russian troops on March 2. Since then, access to water, food and medicine for the nearly 400,000 people living in Mariupol has been declining. Heating, phone services – and electricity in many areas – have been cut off.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Sunday that city residents would face “the worst possible conditions” unless Moscow and Kyiv agreed to allow access to humanitarian aid.

Previous attempts to set up evacuation corridors to allow civilians to flee the city and allow humanitarian aid to enter have failed since the end of the previous ceasefire. Both sides have blamed trade for such failures, with Ukrainian officials accusing Russia of deliberately firing on aid convoys heading to Mariupol.

Russia has accused Kyiv of sabotaging ceasefire agreements and holding civilians hostage.

Mikhail Mizintsev of the Russian Ministry of Defence said that 450 tonnes of medicines, food and essential supplies have been brought to the city after Russia “eliminated the neo-Nazis’ main forces entrenched in the city’s perimeter residential areas,” he said, according to state media news agency TASS.

Russia says that it was conducting a “special military operation” attacking military targets to “de-nazify” the country. Ukraine and its Western allies have said this is a baseless pretext to invade the country.

Authorities in Ukraine have said as many as 2,500 civilians have died so far in the city, a toll that cannot be independently confirmed. Russia has denied targeting civilians.

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