Evacuees from Russia-occupied city where residents ate weeds on way to Ukraine

People evacuated from the devastated Russian-occupied city of Oleshky have arrived in Belarus and are expected back in Ukraine later on Saturday, authorities have said.

Residents of the frontline city had been trapped without food, water and electricity, with many resorting to cooking garden weeds to survive.

The evacuees were taken out of Oleshky on Friday during a local ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump.

Planes carrying the residents landed in the city of Gomel on Saturday morning, according to Belarusian state media and a senior Ukrainian official.

"The last, fourth plane landed in Gomel (Belarus). In a few hours, all Ukrainian citizens evacuated from Oleshky, together with the Ukrainian delegation, will be on Ukrainian territory," said David Arakhamia, a key Ukrainian official.

The state-owned Belarusian news agency Belta reported a bus convoy of Oleshky residents had left Gomel airport and was heading towards the Ukrainian border.

A humanitarian ceasefire took effect across the frontline region of Kherson on Tuesday, providing the first few days of peace in the area in four years, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Conditions had become so desperate in Oleshky that getting supplies into the city had been extremely difficult. Mines and drone attacks made it highly dangerous for residents to try and escape.

One resident who fled the city three weeks earlier told the BBC he had walked through 24km (15 miles) of minefields to get to safety.

The city has been without electricity, gas and water for three years.

The ceasefire allowed the road out of the city to be cleared of mines and will remain in place until the end of Sunday 1 November.

Residents had a four-hour window to leave before a convoy of 25 buses, with space for 750 people, left the town on Friday afternoon - along with ambulances for people with limited mobility.

Several hundred people are understood to have decided to stay in the war-torn city, despite widespread devastation and the lack of gas, electricity and running water.

Before the war, Oleshky was home to 24,000 people, but it was seized by Russia during the first days of its full-scale invasion.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Friday morning that those who decided to stay "will receive all the necessary humanitarian assistance".