SLOVIANSK, May 26. /ITAR-TASS/. Two civilians have been killed in the city of Sloviansk (eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region) when a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the city came under artillery fire, a representative of people’s militia told ITAR-TASS on Monday.
The Ukrainian law-enforcers resumed on Monday morning artillery fire on the settlement of Semyonovka near the besieged eastern Ukrainian town of Sloviansk.
Sloviansk was also subjected to shelling by the Ukrainian military on Sunday night. Submachine-and machine-gun fire could be heard.
Armed clashes near Sloviansk resumed on Sunday evening, almost immediately after the early presidential elections in Ukraine were over.
Polling stations in Donetsk, Sloviansk and other cities of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that had proclaimed their independence from Kiev at the May 11 local referendums did not open during the entire day on Sunday.
Self-defense forces said the Kiev authorities “had not even tried to bring ballot papers to these areas.”
On Saturday, the Ukrainian military shelled Sloviansk and the adjacent settlements, destroying several houses, including a building of the local psychiatric hospital in the settlement of Semyonovka. The hospital’s personnel managed to evacuate patients.
In addition, a group of journalists came under a mortar attack by the Ukrainian military, which killed an Italian photo reporter and his interpreter and wounded a French photographer in the leg.