Almost 10% of the population of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has fled in the past week as it has faced a relentless artillery barrage from Russian invaders.
The Mariupol city council said nearly 40,000 residents have left in the past seven days out of a population of about 430,000. The most recent evacuees left the city in an estimated 8,000 vehicles through a humanitarian corridor running from Berdyansk to Zaporizhzhia, according to The Associated Press.
Authorities in Mariupol said they have been cut off from food, water and electricity since Russian troops encircled the city and began their artillery attack that has lasted for three weeks. The shelling has killed at least 2,300 people, some of whom had to be buried in mass graves.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the siege of Mariupol would go down in history because of what he said were war crimes committed by Russian troops.