“Those who wanted to go have already gone,” said Ruslan, 42, a volunteer with the Union of Ukrainian Churches who drives people to shelters in western Ukraine. He said his group had evacuated 1,000 people from the Bakhmut area over the past month.

Yet of 20 people who had requested evacuation with his organization on Saturday, only nine took up the offer, he said. He had just risked the drive to the frontline town of Siversk to collect people, but came back empty. “No one wants to go,” he said…

Most of those remaining are the poor, the old and the infirm, volunteers and health workers said.

“We mostly see the elderly people seeking all kinds of support,” said Islam Alaraj, program manager for psychosocial support in Ukraine for the International Committee of the Red Cross. “They are the most vulnerable and they have plenty of health issues, and they have added psychological issues above that.”