BBC Online :
Rockets and mortars have hit a convoy of vehicles carrying refugees away from fighting in the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine, causing many casualties, the Ukrainian military says.
Details are still unclear and there has been no independent confirmation of the attack, which Ukraine has blamed on pro-Russian rebels.
A rebel news outlet reported a heavy exchange of artillery fire in the area, Reuters news agency says.
Luhansk is still held by separatists.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said “militants” armed by Russia fired at a refugee convoy with mortars and Grad rockets on Monday. “Many people have been killed, including women and children,” he said.
A spokesman for the rebel self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic”, Andrei Purgin, denied that rebel forces had attacked the convoy.
“The Ukrainians themselves have bombed the road constantly with planes and Grads. It seems they’ve now killed more civilians like they’ve been doing for months now,” he was quoted as saying.
There has been sustained artillery shelling of the city of Luhansk, where civilians are suffering chronic shortages of water, food and electricity. Ukrainian forces are on the city’s outskirts.
Earlier Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said full agreement had been reached on the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine after talks in Berlin. But he said no deal had been reached on achieving a ceasefire.
He was speaking after talks with the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Germany and France in Berlin on Sunday.
