Fifteen Killed by Rebel Shelling In East Ukraine's Mariupol
19 October 2018 16:11 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Fifteen people were killed in shelling in the east Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, Ukraine's interior ministry said, an attack Kiev blamed on separatist rebels and the Russian military.
The deaths follow the separatists' rejection of more peace talks and as fighting surged to its most intense in months. The United Nations said on Friday 262 had been killed in the previous nine days.
Government-held Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, lies on a coastal route from the Russian border to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine last March.
The city council said rockets fired by rebels from long-range GRAD missile systems struck a multi-story building and caused fires to break out.
Oleksander Turchynov, secretary of Ukraine's national defense council, described the incident as "another bloody crime against humanity committed by the Russian military and the bands of terrorists under their complete control," in an online statement.
The attack started in the early morning, 76-year-old pensioner Leonid Vasilenko, who lives in the eastern suburbs of Mariupol, said by telephone.
The interior ministry said 15 people had been killed and 76 injured. Separatists denied responsibility for the attack, news agency Interfax reported.
REUTERS | DWI ARJANTO
