A group of civilians who were evacuated from besieged Mariupol, after a 200-kilometer journey reached the relatively safe Zaporozhye.

Among them are people who have been in bunkers under the Azovstal massive metallurgical plant for months.

For the first time, a humanitarian corridor was successfully agreed to bring them out of the metallurgical plant.

“We lost hope that we would ever get out of there,” one woman told the BBC.

Prior to this evacuation, repeated attempts to negotiate their safe release failed.

According to the Ukrainian military, hundreds of civilians are still trapped at the plant.

After a group of evacuees left on Sunday, Azovstal defenders said Russian forces had resumed shelling immediately.

When a group of women and children arrived in Zaporizhia, there were hugs and tears of exhaustion and relief.

Katarina got off the bus in the sun, everything she has now fits in a small backpack. Her two children, aged 6 and 11, rubbed their eyes wearily.

For two months, they lived in the depths of a steel plant in Mariupol, when Russian bombs fell around. Their only food was rations handed over by Ukrainian soldiers.

“We were fired on day and night. Artillery, missiles, air strikes,” said Katarina.

“Our children could not sleep, they cried, they were afraid. And so were we,” she added.

But the war destroyed their hometown, the ruins of which they saw while driving: “What we saw were just boxes with massive black holes in them. Dwellings have disappeared. There are only their remains.”

The other evacuee, Irena, was with her 17-year-old daughter – and that calmed her down a bit.

“We lived in the hope that every day will be the last day of this hell. That we will go home to peaceful Mariupol, and now he is gone,” she said.

The operation, carried out by the United Nations and the Red Cross, was difficult and sometimes dangerous.

UN officials found that the area had been mined. At some point they had to retreat after an artillery strike.

“When the team went forward to literally wave the flag and try to get these people out, there were a lot of mines that needed to be cleared, both on the Ukrainian side – the metallurgical plant – and on the Russian side,” said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, UN task force chief.

“There was mortar fire, I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know who fired. It stopped pretty quickly,” he said.

Rhodes Stampa said he was stunned by what he saw.

“They went out and saw that the city where they probably grew up was destroyed. Graves on the roads and on every piece of grass you can find,” he said.

“They were terrified. You have to understand, they spent two months underground and didn’t see the news.”

“There was a six-month-old baby who had never seen grass. He was born in the winter and was amazed at how green the grass was. He wanted to play and tinker with it.”

Rhodes Stampa told the BBC that women, children and the elderly had not seen the light for two months.

This time, more than 100 Mariupol residents were rescued, a rare breakthrough in humanitarian efforts during the war.

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the successful evacuation was the result of long negotiations and mediation.

“We will continue to do everything we can to get all our people out of Mariupol and Azovstal,” he said. “It’s difficult, but we need everyone who stays there – civilians and the military.”

Thousands of people are still in the city, and hundreds of people are trapped in an underground maze under the factory.

The Red Cross said it was glad the evacuation was successful, but was disappointed that many people remained in hell.

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