Citizens flee as fighting grips east Ukraine

KURAKHOVE, Ukraine –Terrified residents on Tuesday, August 5, fled the besieged rebel bastion of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine along a perilous humanitarian corridor, as government forces pushed their offensive to the outskirts of the city.

Dozens of cars packed with civilians headed along a road out of the pro-Russian stronghold, past the town of Maryinka where explosions from continuing clashes rumbled on.

Ukraine’s military had called on insurgents in Donetsk, Lugansk and another frontline city Gorlivka on Monday to open corridors for several hours each day to allow civilians to escape.

“We are not stopping anyone, everyone leaves freely. They go every day,” a rebel commander at one checkpoint told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Some fleeing vehicles bore white scarves to mark them out as civilians, and smoke could be seen on both sides of the otherwise deserted road.

At a Ukrainian military checkpoint — consisting of five tanks in a sunflower field — cars started building up, one with a pushchair on the roof and many with elderly people inside.

“We are trying to leave, wherever we can get to,” said a tearful elderly woman travelling with a group of people in a taxi.

Ukrainian forces announced Monday they were closing in around Donetsk after significant gains over the last month.

They aim to cut off fighters in the city from their comrades in Lugansk and along the Russian border, as Kiev seeks a swift end to a civil war that has already claimed over 1,150 lives since mid-April.

But the rebels have pledged to fight on in the major cities they hold and government forces continue to come under heavy bombardment from separatist positions.

Three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 46 injured in the past 24 hours, security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

No food or fuel reserves

Local authorities in Lugansk meanwhile said nearly half the population had fled amid warnings of a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

The city of 420,000 has been without power, running water, Internet or phone lines for 3 days, they said.

“The city has no food or fuel reserves, which makes the situation even worse,” a local official Oleksandr Savenko, was quoted as saying by the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

The United Nations said some 117,000 people had fled to other regions of Ukraine, and a further 168,000 had applied to Russian authorities for asylum.

“We don’t call of those people refugees,” Vincent Cochetel, head of the UNHCR’s European Bureau, told reporters in Geneva.

“But they are not tourists. We have seen them at the border… Sometimes they just walk across the border, some just with plastic bags, and many of them are really destitute.”

Civilians have born the brunt of the violence and Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that rebels were hampering the work of medical services in the industrial east.

The New York-based rights group said insurgents had hijacked ambulances to transport fighters, coerced medics and stolen equipment in what could amount to war crimes.

“This appalling disregard of people who are sick or wounded can be deadly and needs to stop immediately,” said Yulia Gorbunova, the group’s Europe and Central Asia researcher.

At least two medics were killed as rockets or mortars likely fired from government positions hit five hospitals in rebel-held territory, HRW said.

Russian ‘provocation’

The fighting in Ukraine has sent tensions between Russia and the West soaring, with the United States and the EU slapping punishing sanctions on Moscow over its alleged support for the rebels.

In a move that Ukraine’s ministry of defense deemed “a provocation”, Moscow has begun large-scale military exercises in southern Russia set to last until August 8.

Kiev’s military also warned Russia has massed some 45,000 troops along Ukraine’s border.

As the fighting continued, some 110 experts from the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia returned to the site of the downed Malaysia Airlines plane, to comb for further remains and belongings of the victims.

All 298 passengers and crew on flight MH17 were killed on July 17 when the plane was shot out of the sky by what the US believes was a surface-to-air missile fired by rebels and supplied by Moscow.

Rebels and Moscow have pointed the finger at the Ukrainian military. – Rappler.com