Ukraine convoy attack: ‘We were riding with white flag’ say survivors as 15 …
Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, the presidents of Russia and Ukraine,
announced on Tuesday that they would meet for talks on the crisis in Minsk,
Belarus, on August 26.
The attack on the refugee column, in which many victims were said to have
burned alive in their vehicles, allegedly took place between the villages of
Khryashchuvatye and Novosvitlivka, about eight miles to the southeast of
Luhansk.
Ukraine said the refugees had hung white flags from the vehicles they were
travelling in. However the column was partly made up of military trucks
provided by the Ukrainian army, which may have made it a target.
There has been no independent confirmation of the incident, and no photographs
or video have emerged of the scene.
But Ukraine’s ministry of defence on Tuesday released a video which it said
featured survivors.
One middle-aged man in the video said that soldiers were helping people flee
the area.
“We got ready quickly, as we could, and jumped in and we were taken off,”
he said. “At the junction, another [vehicle] was waiting for us. We
turned and set off, it wanted to follow us, and then a mortar shell fell
right on that vehicle and hit the refugees, and cut the vehicle in half.”
The man added: “We were riding with a white flag.”
A woman tending a young man with a bandaged leg lying on a hospital bed told
the camera that a vehicle carrying about 15 people was hit, and shrapnel
flew into another.
The separatists have denied any involvement in the incident, suggesting
Ukrainian troops were likely to blame.