On day 19 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some civilians were able to leave the city of Mariupol along a pre-agreed route for the first time.

Mariupol, a key port city in the south-east of Ukraine, is facing a humanitarian crisis after nearly two weeks of continuous Russian shelling, with food, water, and medicine running out and communication to the outside world all but cut off.

There have been several previous agreements to allow civilians to leave the city, but they quickly broke down each time.

On Monday, however, the Mariupol city council said 160 private vehicles had managed to leave and were on their way to the relative safety of Zaporizhzhia - a city to the north-west.

The level of destruction in Mariupol was made clear in drone footage, which showed bombed out apartment blocks and smoke rising from the rubble.

A tragic update

Last week, Russian bombs hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Powerful images of two pregnant women escaping from the wreckage were shared around the world.

But on Monday, we learned that one of the women had died along with her baby who was stillborn by Caesarean section.

After delivering the baby, who showed no signs of life, medics focused on the mother but were unable to keep her alive, surgeon Timur Marin told the Associated Press.

Ukraine's mass graves

In another vivid example of the terrible conditions in Mariupol, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC that several burial sites had been dug to cope with the rising number of civilian deaths.

Serhiy Orlov said the city's street cleaners and road repair teams were collecting dead bodies in the street. More than 2,500 people have been killed in Mariupol since the war began, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

The BBC heard similar stories from local officials elsewhere in Ukraine, for example the town of Bucha near Kyiv, where more than 60 people were buried in a mass grave.