In the situation when the sides of the conflict in Donbass confirmed their commitment to indefinite ceasefire starting from July 2019 as a result of the consultations by the Trilateral Group, it is with great concern we hear everyday news on the ceasefire being violated.
On 26 September, the SMM followed up on a report of a civilian injured due to small-arms fire in the Trudivski area of the Petrovskyi district in Donetsk City (non-government-controlled). At a hospital in Donetsk, the SMM saw a man with a bullet wound. The man stated that on September 19th he had been standing at a crossroads, heard small-arms fire and was hit in the leg.
The previous report gives an account of two more cases of civilians being injured: an old woman was injured inside her house by shelling in Roza (non-government-controlled, 89km south of Donetsk) on 6 September. The roof of the house collapsed on her and she is in shock, suffered several contusions, and continues to have hearing problems. Another woman in Roza was also injured by shelling on 6 September.
At a hospital in Novoazovsk (non-government-controlled, 40km east of Mariupol), the SMM saw a woman with burn injuries on both hands she was injured in the morning of 6 September while escaping her burning house, adding that her house, yard and car had been destroyed.
The SMM Daily Report of 11 September 2019 noted damage from shelling to houses in the settlement. In the same report the OSCE SMM informed of a man injured on 5 September due to a mine explosion about 3km north-north-west of Ternove (non-government-controlled, 15km south-east of Luhansk): the explosive device had detonated while he was collecting hay.
On 24 September, at a hospital in Novoazovsk (non-government-controlled, 102km south-east of Donetsk), reported a woman in her sixties had been admitted the previous day with a shrapnel wound to her upper right leg. The SMM attempted to visit Pikuzy but was denied access to the settlement at a checkpoint in Zaichenko (non-government-controlled, 93km south of Donetsk).
On 10 September in Staromykhailivka (non-government-controlled, 15km west of Donetsk) a woman was injured (the OSCE SMM report). At Hospital No. 24 in Donetsk City, medical staff announced that a woman had shrapnel embedded in her right heel. On 13 September the SMM visited this woman in her home in Staromykhailivka and the woman said that she had been outside her house with her son when she heard shelling. They took cover between the house and the garage, the roof of which was hit and she was injured.
The SMM followed up on reports of a woman injured on 29 August in Novoluhanske (government-controlled, 53km north-east of Donetsk). Her son related to the SMM that his mother had sustained an injury to her lower leg on the evening of 29 August when she was alone at her home in Pervomaiska Street in Novoluhanske and he had taken her to the hospital in Svitlodarsk. On 31 August, the SMM saw fresh bullet holes in the west-facing doors and walls of a brick summer kitchen. The Mission assessed the damage as caused by gunfire from a west-south-westerly direction.
On September 6 at around 5.45 a.m. the territory of the non-controlled settlement of Kachkarskoye along with the nearby Roza village were reportedly subjected to shelling by howitzers and large-caliber mortars prohibited by Minsk Agreements. According to the information available, two civilians were injured, one of them seriously. In addition, there is a report of a working school and kindergarten located in the village of Kazatskoye being damaged. The same day, according to a number of reports, the town of Yasinovataya was subjected to shelling.
The OSCE SMM reports confirm the high level of ceasefire violations, including an accident when the SMM patrol had to leave non-government-controlled Pikuzy (Kominternovo) due to small-arms fire from the north-west when they were conducting an impact site assessment of a previous shelling, as their spot report from September 4, 2019 states. According to OSCE SMM statistics from September 5, the average number of recorded ceasefire violations has reached 600.
