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Death toll in riots outside Ukraine parliament reaches two — interior minister

Another member of Ukraine’s National Guard has died following Monday's riots

KIEV, September 1. /TASS/. Another member of Ukraine’s National Guard has died following Monday's riots outside the parliament in Kiev, bringing the total death toll to two, the country’s interior minister has said.

"Another National Guard [member], a conscript from Zholtye Vody, has died of wounds in hospital after yesterday’s grenade explosion," Arsen Avakov wrote in a statement posted on his Twitter account.

More than 3,000 people opposed to amendments to Ukraine’s constitution staged pickets outside Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada on Monday as the MPs were considering the constitutional amendments supposed to decentralize power in Ukraine and find a political peaceful settlement to the Donbass conflict.

The protesters clashed with the police. Someone from the crowd hurled a grenade at the police cordons surrounding the parliament building.

On Monday, one National Guard member died of injuries after the violence. A total of 141 people have been injured, and most of them - 131-are police officers and National Guard soldiers, including 10 in serious condition.

The country’s interior minister has accused Ukraine’s nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and its leader Oleg Tyagnibok of this fresh outbreak of violence. The Svoboda party said the grenade incident was a "provocation" aimed against Ukraine’s patriots. A criminal case into terrorism has been launched. The Interior Ministry has detained 18 people, and five of them remain in a custody cell.