ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine, March 16, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Exhausted, shivering and
travelling in cars with shattered windscreens or no windows, some of the
first evacuees from Ukraine's besieged Mariupol drove into the nearest safe
city of Zaporizhzhia Tuesday.

  Around 20,000 people managed to leave the encircled port city Tuesday
through a humanitarian corridor agreed with Russian forces, President
Volodymyr Zelensky's deputy chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on
Telegram.

  "This is the first time I have been able to breathe in weeks," said father-
of-two Mykola, his car a jumble of blankets, shoes and other hastily-packed
belongings.

  His family was among around 570 carloads who arrived in Zaporizhzhia,
around 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest.

  Those in the remaining cars were forced to spend the night along the route,
Tymoshenko said.

  Arriving in small batches, private vehicles with scraps of white material
tied to the wing mirrors in a sign of truce pulled into the car park of a
shopping centre on the city's outskirts, which is now a registration centre
for displaced people.

  They described a harrowing journey, forced to drive off-road to avoid
Russian troops and checkpoints and facing the constant threat of enemy fire
on the way.

  Mykola, who asked not give his full name as he cannot flee the country,
said that just 40 kilometres (25 miles) away from Zaporozhzhia he had to
drive his wife and two young children through a minefield with help from the
Ukrainian military.

  "As we passed through, there was a burnt-out car. Soldiers said a woman had
been blown up after she hit a mine just one hour before we got there," he
said.

  The city of Zaporizhzhia is the first safe port of call for those fleeing
Mariupol, many of whom are heading towards the country's west, and perhaps on
to Poland or other bordering countries.

  Tuesday's evacuation was much larger than Monday, when a group of 160 cars
left Mariupol, according to the city council.

  The first successful evacuations come after several failed attempts since
Russian forces surrounded the port city on the Azov Sea early this month.

  - 'Bodies in the street' -

  Dmytro, who arrived with his wife and two young children in Zaporizhzhia on
Tuesday, said it was his third attempt to leave Mariupol with his family.

  On the previous attempts, he said, they had been "told to go home again" by
Russian forces with tanks and machine guns.

  His hands black with dirt, Dmytro said he had not washed in two weeks and
that Mariupol residents were forced to drink river water.

  He said he looted shops for food to feed his children and grandparents.

  "We lived underground and if it was -4 degrees C, it was a good
temperature," he said.

  Mariupol is facing a humanitarian catastrophe according to aid agencies,
since heavy bombardment has left some 400,000 inhabitants with no running
water or heating and food running short.

  More than 2,100 residents have been killed in Mariupol since the Russian
invasion, according to city authorities.

  "Sometimes bodies are in the street for three days. The smell is in the air
and you don't want your children to smell it," said Dmytro.

  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday the
situation in Mariupol "remains dire" and that it was not able to deliver aid
to the city.

  "The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of people are still
suffering," the ICRC said.

   Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that altogether, nearly 29,000
people managed to use humanitarian routes to flee encircled cities on
Tuesday.