Deadly fighting in Ukraine despite truce

A woman was reportedly killed in the government-held port city of Mariupol as violence between separatists and Ukrainian forces erupted overnight Saturday to Sunday near a government checkpoint on the coastal city's eastern edge.

Mariupol's local council on Sunday confirmed the woman's death, as local media reported she had been travelling in a car that was riddled by shrapnel from an artillery attack. Three people were also reportedly injured.

The city council blamed separatist forces for breaking the truce by attacking a government checkpoint, while the separatists blamed Kyiv's forces, who they accused of attacking them with missiles.

Mariupol is located on the Sea of Azov, some 115 kilometers (70 miles) south of Donetsk and fears have been raised that the separatists were trying to claim an overland corridor between Russia and Crimea, which Russia annexed in March.

Donetsk under fire

In separatist-held Donetsk (pictured above), blasts from the area near the airport, which is under the control of Kyiv forces, were loud enough to be heard in the city's downtown on Sunday.

The AP news agency quoted a spokespersom from Ukraine's national security council Volodymyr Polyovyi as saying that it appeared the separatists had tried to attack the airport. Again, the separatists issued statements accusing Ukrainian forces of violating the ceasefire, and reported that several of their fighters had been killed.

"As far as I know, the Ukrainian side is not observing the ceasefire. We have wounded on our side at various points. We are observing the ceasefire," the deputy premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's republic, Vladimir Antyufeyev, told the Reuters news agency.

Amnesty International has condemned the five-month conflict's toll on civilians, saying "all sides" carry blame for the violence.

Truce under pressure

The renewed violence has heightened fears that the current ceasefire, which came into effect late Friday and was the first to be backed by senior separatist leaders, Kyiv and Moscow, would go the same way as the unilateral ceasefire called by Kyiv in June, which collapsed within days.

An end to the fighting was a key part of the 12-point truce deal, signed Friday in Minsk, Belarus. The deal also included the release of prisoners and alleged hostages, as well as a "temporary special status" to separatist-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

se/hc (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)