VIENNA, January 22. /TASS/. The shell that hit a trolleybus stop in east Ukraine’s city of Donetsk killing at least 13 people had been fired from a northwestern direction most probably from a mortar or an artillery unit, the Special Monitoring Mission /SMM/ of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe /OSCE/ said in a spot report on the shelling incident in Donetsk on Thursday.
According to the reports, two craters were observed at the scene of the incident. “One of them, 8m north-east of the bus, had a depth of 5cm and a diameter of 1.5m. The other, 150m south-east of the bus, had a depth of 15cm and a diameter of 1.8m. At 11:00hrs the SMM conducted a crater analysis on both craters, and determined that the rounds that caused the two craters had been fired from a north-western direction. The SMM also determined that the weapon(s) used was most likely either a mortar or an artillery piece,” the report said.
The SMM arrived at the scene some 20 minutes after the incident to see “a trolleybus which had been hit by shrapnel and a burnt-out car 20m away, also hit by shrapnel. All windows in the trolleybus were shattered and tyres punctured,” the report said. “The SMM observed seven dead bodies, three females, three males and one of indeterminate gender. Three of the bodies were in the bus, three in close proximity to the bus - the furthest approximately 25m away - and one in the burnt-out car.”
The SMM later visited the Donetsk hospital, where the chief surgeon 13 people injured in the incident had been admitted at the hospital. “All of the injured, he said, had suffered serious injuries and all of them required surgery,” according to the report. The SMM also “contacted a representative of Donetsk City Morgue, who said that eight bodies - related to the incident on Kuprina Street - had been received by the morgue.”.