35,000 civilians evacuated from Ukrainian cities on Wednesday: Zelensky

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A rescuer pushes a trolley with an eldery woman during the evacuation by civilians of the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 8, 2022. – More than two million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion less than two weeks ago, the United Nations said on March 8, 2022. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)

KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) – At least 35,000 civilians were evacuated from besieged Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

In a video address late Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said three humanitarian corridors had allowed residents to leave the cities of Sumy, Enerhodar and areas around Kyiv.

This handout video grab taken and released by the Ukraine Presidency press service on March 7, 2022 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking in the capital Kyiv. – President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 8, 2022, denounced what he called unkept “promises” by the West to protect Ukraine from Russian attacks. “It’s been 13 days we’ve been hearing promises, 13 days we’ve been told we’ll be helped in the air, that there will be planes, that they will be delivered to us,” Zelensky said on a video broadcast on Telegram. (Photo by Handout / UKRAINE PRESIDENCY / AFP)

He said he hoped the evacuations would continue on Thursday with three more routes set to open out of the cities of Mariupol, Volnovakha in the southeast and Izium in eastern Ukraine.

The evacuations came after Moscow and Kyiv agreed on Wednesday to open more corridors, offering a glimmer of hope for terrified civilians trapped in bombarded cities.

TOPSHOT – A woman hugs her cat inside a subway wagon in a underground metro station used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv on March 8, 2022. – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, invoking the wartime defiance of British prime minister Winston Churchill, vows to “fight to the end” in a historic virtual speech to UK lawmakers. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / STF / AFP)

More than 5,000 people were evacuated a day earlier from Sumy, a city of 250,000 that lies close to the Russian border and has been the scene of heavy fighting.

But attempted evacuations from the port town of Mariupol, which has been besieged by Russia for days, have failed on several occasions, with both Kyiv and Moscow blaming each other.

A man walks between houses destroyed during air strikes on the central Ukranian city of Bila Tserkva on March 8, 2022. – Russia stepped up its bombing campaign and missile strikes on Ukraine’s cities, destroying two residential buildings in a town west of Kyiv with the city of Bila Tserkva to the south of the capital also hit. (Photo by Aris Messinis / AFP)

On Wednesday, a Russian strike destroyed a children’s hospital in the city, triggering renewed global outrage two weeks into Moscow’s invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbour.

Mariupol’s mayor said more than 1,200 civilians have been killed in the siege, which has lasted more than a week.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR has estimated the total number of refugees at 2.1 to 2.2 million.

© Agence France-Presse