DONETSK, March 23. /TASS/. Over 560 people, including 110 children, were able to leave the city of Mariupol in the past 24 hours, the Territorial Defense Headquarters of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said in a statement on Telegram on Wednesday.
"As many as 562 people, including 110 children, were evacuated from Mariupol to the Bezymennoye settlement in the Novoazovsky district in the past 24 hours, between 8:00 am on March 22 and 8:00 am on March 23. They are currently staying at a center providing assistance to evacuees, which was set up by the DPR Emergencies Ministry," the statement reads.
According to the DPR Territorial Defense Headquarters, a total of 4,621 people have been evacuated to the Bezymennoye assistance center since March 5. The Russian Defense Ministry, in turn, said that more than 68,000 people had been evacuated from Mariupol as of March 22. The ministry stressed that the humanitarian situation in the city was "catastrophic."
Tensions escalated along the line of contact in Donbass on February 17. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics reported the heaviest shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in months. On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation based on a request from the heads of the Donbass republics. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories and the goal was to demilitarize and denazify the country.