At least 5 killed in Ukraine as shelling targets hospital, schools

Heavy shelling in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday afternoon killed at least five people and damaged a hospital, six schools and five kindergartens, local officials said.

 

The fighting between Russia-backed separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine resumed in January after a month of relative calm, killing more than 200 people in the past three weeks, according to the United Nations.

 

The city hall in Donetsk said the number of casualties from Wednesday’s shelling in the west part of Donetsk in the early afternoon was not immediately established but the rebel-run Donetsk News Agency reported five killed inside and near the hospital in Tekstilshchik district.

 

An Associated Press reporter who arrived on the scene shortly after the attack found one body covered by a sheet on the ground several meters from the building, near a crater from a projectile. The hospital was damaged by shrapnel and windows were shattered.

 

“There were six or seven explosions,” said Vladimir Oryol who witnessed the attack. “We were standing outside the nightclub, we fell on the ground, people were screaming, in fact it was very scary and horrible.”

 

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