MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) observed damage to residential buildings and a hospital in Donetsk, one man was killed as the city was shelled on Thursday, SMM said in its most recent report.
“The SMM observed damage to two high-rise buildings and a hospital, indicating that they had recently been shelled. One man was killed and one injured in the vicinity of the hospital,” the report says.
According to the report, OSCE observers in downtown Donetsk heard a series of loud explosions on Thursday morning, “lasting six seconds, followed 30 minutes later by another series of explosions.”
As the group proceded to the residential area, they “observed two high-rise buildings that had evidently sustained serious damage, which the SMM assessed as being consistent with shelling.”
“Two hundred meters from the high rise buildings, the SMM observed that all the windows on the second floor of a public hospital had been destroyed. On entering the hospital, the SMM observed that the entire second floor had been destroyed, with internal walls, furniture and medical equipment destroyed, with only rubble remaining,” the report says adding that the SMM has photographs of all material damage observed.
The report also states that the OSCE observers saw many “evidently traumatized and crying civilians and medical staff,” while the patients, in their pyjamas, were outside the building.
“A doctor told the SMM that two civilians, who had been standing outside the building at the time of the attack, had been hit by shrapnel, one of whom, he said, had died. The SMM later went to the morgue, where they saw a body, with upper chest injuries consistent with information supplied by the doctor,” the report says.
Donetsk city administration’s press service reported earlier that four people were killed and 18 wounded after the shelling.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine broke out in mid-April, when, following a February 22 coup, the newly-instated Ukrainian government launched a military operation to suppress independence supporters, who have refused to acknowledge the new authorities. According to the latest UN report, the conflict has claimed the lives of more than 1,100 civilians since then, with nearly 3,500 injured.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned Kiev’s “war against its own people” and urged an immediate stop to the punitive operation, advocating a peaceful resolution to the crisis
