Mortar Attacks Kill 7 in Donetsk as Ukrainian Fighting Rages On

DONETSK, Ukraine — Seven people were killed and at least three wounded in a pair of mortar attacks on the city’s west side Friday, including one that hit a crowd of people waiting in line to receive humanitarian aid as fighting raged outside of town.

The carnage ended nearly a day-and-a-half of relative calm in the region controlled by pro-Russian separatists, where fighting between the rebels and the Ukrainian military has spiked sharply since a shaky cease-fire broke down earlier this month.

Officials of the Donetsk People’s Republic were quick to attribute the attacks to Ukrainian “saboteurs” who it said had infiltrated the city. “Once again we have the baseness and the meanness of the Ukrainian sabotage groups,” they said in a statement.

The crowd at the attack site was so large, she said, because other centers for dispersing aid near the airport and in other dangerous neighborhoods had been closed in recent days, forcing people from several parts of the city to come there to pick up their aid.

“We are not military people, we do not know what is going on,” Ms. Fil said. “We are just trying to organize humanitarian aid to people who are suffering.”

The sounds of a few more explosive bursts could be heard later in the afternoon in the same Kuybyshevsky district, but there were no further reports of casualties.

The New York Times