The Red Cross evacuates 1000 civilians from Mariupol

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The Red Cross evacuates 1000 civilians from Mariupol.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it escorted a convoy of people leaving the besieged city of Mariupol.

On Monday, the ICRC said the team sent a few days ago to help evacuate civilians from Mariupol was being held by police in Russian-controlled territory.

But today the ICRC ended up leading a convoy of private vehicles with people who had managed to leave Mariupol and other nearby areas without ICRC support.

Other private cars and buses joined the convoy on its journey, the ICRC said, more than 1,000 people ended up arriving in Zaporizhia.

Repeated attempts to evacuate residents from the city have failed, although some have made this dangerous run only towards safety.

Earlier this week, the mayor of Mariupol estimated that about 90 percent of the city was completely destroyed as a result of the war.