Citizens Flee as Fighting Grips East Ukraine
Terrified residents on Tuesday 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 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 traveling 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.
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 three 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.
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 U.S. 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.
At least 285,000 people have fled their homes because of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the United Nations said Tuesday, warning that intensified battles could lead to a "massive exodus".
Local Ukrainian authorities have so far registered some 117,000 people flooding out of the east to other regions of the country, the U.N. refugee agency said.
Vincent Cochetel, head of the UNHCR's European Bureau, told reporters in Geneva that the number "is in our view a low estimate," since most men fleeing failed to register to avoid being drafted into the Ukrainian army and sent back to the conflict zone.
In addition, around 168,000 Ukrainians had as of August 1 applied to Russian authorities for asylum, refugee and other kinds of protective statuses such as temporary residence permits, he said.
The total of at least 285,000 displaced people marks a 24 percent jump from figures provided by the UNHCR last month.
But according to Russian authorities, more than half a million more Ukrainians have gone to Russia since January under the country's visa-free regime, without registering, Cochetel said.
"According to the Russian authorities, and we believe that number is credible, there are about 730,000 Ukrainians who have crossed into Russia since the beginning of the year," Cochetel said.
"We don't call all of those people refugees," he said, adding that only some of the 168,000 who had applied for protective status fell into that category.
"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."
The UNHCR said 87 percent of those displaced inside Ukraine had fled the main rebel strongholds of Donetsk and Lugansk, while the remainder were from Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in March.
The already staggering numbers of displaced people were rising fast, Cochetel warned, saying that over the past two weeks, 1,200 people had been flooding out of Donetsk and Lugansk into other parts of Ukraine each day.
"Those people are leaving with very little," he said. "Some of them arrive with almost no belongings or got some of their belongings confiscated at checkpoints."
With the Ukrainian army closing in on Donetsk, there is fear that intense fighting could move into the city center, which is home to at least one million.
"Fighting in highly densified urban areas could lead to a massive exodus and massive destruction," Cochetel said, warning that water shortages in Lugansk could also spark more people to leave.
Source: Agence France Presse
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