What is known about the situation in Mariupol?

After enduring days of relentless shelling by the Russian army, residents of Mariupol on Monday were finally able to escape the besieged city.

"As of 13:00 pm (1100 GMT), more than 160 private cars have managed to leave Mariupol on the road to Berdyansk," the Mariupol city council said Monday on Telegram, in the most significant evacuation since Russian troops encircled the city earlier this month.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, authorities hope to open "nine humanitarian" corridors on Tuesday to evacuate and get aid to civilians in the besieged city.

For more than a week, civilians had repeatedly tried and failed to get out of the city. Efforts to open a humanitarian corridor faltered several times when the invading troops continued to bombard densely populated residential areas, making it impossible for people to take the routes to safety.

Russian authorities had claimed that Ukrainian radical groups had violated the ceasefire agreement and that the citizens are being used as human shields. A United Nations Security Council representative spoke of Russian breaches of the humanitarian cease-fire.

Now, some roads are open for civilian vehicles to leave the city that's been suffering through two weeks of blockades and heavy shelling.

Unborn victim of war

More than 2,500 people have been killed in Mariupol since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, on Monday. International organizations have not been able to confirm the figures, as the city has remained inaccessible, with its internet and mobile phone networks shut down.

But the scarce photos and videos that have leaked out of the city tell a grim story.

One is of a pregnant woman and her unborn child, who survived an airstrike that hit a maternity hospital and killed at least three people and injured 17.

Photos showing her blood-covered body being transported out of rubble on a stretcher went viral shortly thereafter, prompting widespread condemnation.

She and her baby both died from their injuries in another hospital a few hours before the humanitarian corridor was finally open.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Sunday that Mariupol residents faced "a worst-case scenario."

"Dead bodies, of civilians and combatants, remain trapped under the rubble or lying in the open where they fell. Life-changing injuries and chronic, debilitating conditions cannot be treated," the statement read. "The human suffering is simply immense."

As casualties of both civilians and soldiers continue to rise, city officials were forced to resort to burying the dead in mass graves. In material released by the Associated Press last Wednesday, Ukrainian men were seen placing bodies wrapped in cloth or plastic into a trench.

Those who survived the bombardment were left without gas, power or drinking water for days.

Why does Mariupol matter to Putin?

With its strategic location, Mariupol has been one of the main targets of the Kremlin's attack on Ukraine. The city of more than 400,000 lies between territories held by the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region and Crimea, a peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. The city is only a few dozen kilometers from Russia's land and sea borders.

By seizing the city, Putin could create a corridor between Russia, the Donbas area, and Crimea, and take full control of the Sea of Azov.

Mariupol is also economically important. Its two steel factories, Illich Steel & Iron Works and Azovstal, account for a large share of Ukrainian steel production.

It is not the first time that this city finds itself in the middle of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In May 2014, as war broke out in the Donbas area, pro-Russian forces chased Ukrainian forces out of the city. Ukraine recaptured the city in an offensive a month later.

One of the forces that played a key role in recapturing the city at that time was a far-right militia, the so-called Azov Battalion. Mariupol has since become a primary base for the group. Russian and pro-Russian forces have been particularly focused on members of the militia, trying to emphasize the presence of far-right groups in Ukraine in order to brand Ukraine a "neo-Nazi" country.

Having failed to swiftly capture Mariupol, the Russian troops have scaled up bombardment and siege on the city, leading to a humanitarian catastrophe. Should Moscow attempt similar tactics to take bigger cities like Kyiv and Dnipro, the result could be even more dramatic.

Edited by: Andreas Illmer; Sonya Diehn

Source: DW