OSCE observers inspect shelled houses in eastern Ukraine

Monitors on Sunday (May 14) inspected a household in the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiyivka which was damaged by artillery fire a day earlier. Photo grabbed from Reuters video file.

AVDIYIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) — Monitors on Sunday (May 14) inspected a household in the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiyivka which was damaged by artillery fire a day earlier.

Members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission inspected the attack site and spoke with local residents who witnessed the incident.

Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday (May 13) that four civilians were killed in renewed artillery attacks in the east of the country which they blamed on pro-Russian separatists.

Shelling continues in eastern Ukraine despite a ceasefire agreement signed in February 2015 in Minsk that aims to end the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and the rebels. Each side accuses the other of violating the truce.

Fighting between the pro-Russian separatists and government forces first broke out in April 2014 after a pro-European uprising in Kiev ousted Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president. About 10,000 people have been killed in the three-year conflict.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko on Sunday blamed Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for non-fulfillment of the Minsk agreements.