30 killed in artillery fire in Ukraine

Kiev, Jan 25 (IANS/EFE) At least 30 people were killed and 93 others sustained injuries when artillery struck parts of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to the government of Donetsk province, loyal to Kiev.

A spokesman for Mariupol's municipal government, Oleg Kalinin told Ukraine's Hromadske.TV that at least two minors were killed Saturday in the artillery fire, EFE reported Sunday.

The health department of the Donetsk provincial government, for its part, said at least five other minors were injured by the artillery fire, which landed in residential areas of the city, the second largest in the province and its provisional capital.

The secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, blamed the attack on "Russian soldiers and the militiamen they completely control", while Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

Despite the seriousness of the shelling, Turchinov said the city of nearly 5,00,000 people is well protected by the Ukrainian military and is not at risk of being overrun by the separatists.

The artillery projectiles hit at least three residential areas of the city, setting cars ablaze and damaging several buildings, including a market.

To date, the port of Mariupol, located on the north coast of the Sea of Azov, has been largely immune from the armed conflict that erupted in mid-2014 in the eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) denied being behind the attacks and blamed Ukrainian forces for the tragedy.

"The bombardment of residential areas of Mariupol is a provocation. The army of the DPR did not fire its artillery Saturday in that direction," a spokesman for the ethnic-Russian rebel militias told Russian news agency Interfax.

DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko, who Friday announced the start of a broad offensive aimed at driving Ukraine's army to the other side of the border of Donetsk province, said for the moment, Mariupol is not a priority objective for the separatists.

--IANS/EFE

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