Ukraine attack on Donetsk markets leaves dozens dead

At least 25 people were killed yesterday after Ukrainian forces shelled a busy suburban shopping area in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials.

- Sam Jones

Alexei Kulemzin, the city's Russia-installed mayor, said Ukrainian artillery had fired on a bustling district where shops and a market are located. Denis Pushilin, the Russia-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said emergency services were working at the scene, adding that a further 20 people, including two children, had been injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik.

Pushilin said the area had been hit by 155mm and 152mm calibre shells fired from the direction of Kurakhove and Krasnohorivka to the west.

Reuters photographs and video taken at the scene showed crying people, some of whom said they had lost relatives, and bodies lying in the snow near one of the city's markets.

Shattered shopfronts and broken glass could be seen in videos shared by Russian state media.

A local resident named as Tatiana said she had heard an incoming projectile overhead, and had hidden under her market stall. "I saw smoke, people screamed, a woman was crying," she told a local media outlet.