Civilians suffer in Ukraine clashes as probe gathers pace

DONETSK: Fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels left at least 10 civilians dead in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as an international probe at the crash site of downed flight MH17 made headway.
The deputy mayor in the encircled insurgent stronghold of Donetsk told AFP that shooting in a residential suburb had left six civilians dead and 13 injured, the latest casualties of more than three months of civil war that has claimed at least 1,150 lives.
Local authorities in the second-largest separatist bastion of Lugansk said shelling had left three dead and eight injured, while the city council in the frontline rebel base of Gorlivka reported one dead and 16 hurt in clashes there.
Ukraine's military said its positions in the region continued to come under heavy bombardment, including shellfire allegedly from across the porous border with former Soviet master Russia.
A top rebel chief admitted that Donetsk was in a state of "siege" and said fighters were trying to breach a government blockade.
"Our guys are dying heroically in efforts to break through," said deputy prime minister of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, Vladimir Antyufeev.
And it is civilians in the blighted region who are bearing the brunt of the violence.
In the face of the punishing government blockade, the mayor of Lugansk, a city of some 420,000, warned of a looming "humanitarian catastrophe" as electricity has failed and water and fuel supplies have run out.
The latest violence came as scores of Dutch and Australian police investigators completed a third day of trawling through the vast MH17 debris field for more remains of the 298 people killed when the Malaysian passenger jet was blown out of the sky almost three weeks ago.
After days of fierce fighting prevented experts from reaching the scene of the disaster, the Dutch-led probe has now bulked up to nearly full strength with sniffer dogs and refrigerated ambulance vans brought in as they work to make up for lost time.
"We have already searched one of the five zones that we have divided the crash site into," said Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch police mission. – AFP
Search crews continued to turn up body parts and personal belongings scattered across some 20 sq km, and those leading the probe say it could take some three more weeks. A total of 220 sets of remains have already been taken to the Netherlands for identification.
Another plane carrying an unspecified number of remains flew out of the government-held city of Kharkiv yesterday.
Aalbersberg told journalists that a train wagon carrying victims' possessions was currently stuck at a rebel-held train station.
The US has accused insurgents of downing MH17 on July 17 with a surface-to-air missile likely supplied by Russia, while Moscow and the rebels blamed the Ukrainian military.