On Sunday, more than 50 residents were evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel factory in a convoy of trucks with United Nations emblems, indicating that an agreement had been reached to alleviate the misery of the most damaging siege in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The siege of Mariupol, which has lasted over two months, has transformed the port city into a wasteland, with an unknown death toll and hundreds attempting to live without water, sanitation, or food.

The city is now under Russian control, but some combatants and residents are still holed up in the Azovstal complex, a massive Soviet-era facility created by Josef Stalin and built with a maze of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attack.