Civilians were allowed to leave the city of Mariupol, Ukraine, for five hours on Saturday (5/3/2022) from 12 to 17 Moscow time (16-21 WIB), the Russian news agency RIA quoted in a report as saying.
Earlier, Russia said that its troops, which had surrounded the port city on the Sea of Azov, would stop attacks and allow civilians to pass.
Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko on Friday called for military assistance as the city ran out of drinking water, electricity and fuel for heating, while food supplies were also running low.
He also called for a "humanitarian corridor" to evacuate 400,000 residents after the city was bombarded by Russian forces for five days.
"We are literally being crushed," Boychenko said in a televised broadcast.
He described the Russian attack as "indiscriminate" because it attacked residential areas and hospitals.
"They want to eliminate Mariupol and the people of Mariupol from the face of the earth," he said.
Russia has said its military action was not designed to occupy Ukraine but to destroy its neighbor's military capabilities and capture "dangerous nationalists". Moscow denies targeting civilians.
The Ukrainian army is trying to defend Mariupol but needs sufficient support, said the deputy commander of the Azov military unit Tamil News Live Tv Channels, part of the Ukrainian National Guard.
"This is the last city that prevents the formation of a land corridor from Russia to Crimea," he said on Azov's official Telegram channel, introducing himself by the nickname "Kalyna".
"Mariupol must not fall," he said.
A number of Mariupol residents had fled to the city center to escape rocket attacks on the outskirts, Ivan Yermolayev said.
The 30-year-old businessman who took refuge in a small room under his house joined the queue to get water from a well.
"They took their children to the center (of the city) and heard the war was drawing near," he told Reuters in an online message.
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