An uptick in violence has been recently spotted on the demarcation line in Donbas, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine says.
“Over the last week we have been observing the growth of the level of violence along the line of contact. The number of ceasefire violations recorded by the OSCE SMM has increased by 55% [compared with the previous reporting period]. But it is the use of weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements that causes our particular concern,” Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine Alexander Hug told the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
The ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and Luhansk included about 190 and 540 explosions correspondingly (earlier – 28 and 157).
The mission also recorded 547 cases of resorting to multiple rocket launchers and other artillery pieces and mortars, Hug stressed. The recorded use of weapons that should have been withdrawn under the Minsk agreements had increased almost four-fold between July 31 and August 6 (547 instances) compared to the week before (137 instances).
According to the information provided by the mission, sixty-two civilians have been killed in hostilities in eastern Ukraine this year.
“Three civilians were killed and ten injured from July 24 to August 8, bringing the total number of civilian casualties confirmed by the SMM in 2017 to 345, including 62 fatalities,” the report reads.
belsat.eu
