OSCE reports 44 civilian victims in Donbas hostilities since early 2020

The victims include six fatalities and 38 injuries.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine says 44 people have become victims of the conflict in Donbas.

"Between May 4 and May 17, the SMM recorded about 10,500 ceasefire violations, including approximately 2,000 explosions. This compares with about 9,800 and 2,750, respectively, in the previous two-week period," the SMM said in a report as of May 18, 2020.

"The Mission corroborated reports of nine civilian casualties all injuries, including five children, bringing the total since the beginning of 2020 to 44 (six fatalities and 38 injuries)," reads the report.

It is also reported members of the armed formations continued to deny the SMM passage at checkpoints along official crossing routes in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Overall, the Mission's freedom of movement on the ground was restricted 38 times (all but one in areas not controlled by the Government). In particular, on May 8, armed members of the armed formations stopped an SMM patrol in Horlivka and prevented its departure for almost three hours," the report says.

At the same time, SMM UAVs were subjected to signal interference on both sides of the contact line on 30 occasions, and were targeted by small-arms fire six times (all but one in nongovernment-controlled areas).

As UNIAN reported earlier, Russia's hybrid military forces on May 24 mounted 12 attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.