Rebels ‘begin offensive’ on Mariupol

Eastern Ukraine’s main rebel leader says he has launched an offensive against the government-held port city of Mariupol.
His comments came after a series of rocket attacks which Ukrainian media said had left 27 people dead and many others injured in the city.
Grad rockets hit a market in a residential eastern area of Mariupol, the city’s police chief said.
Since April, more than 5,000 people have died in fighting in the east.
The rebels have seized a large swathe of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. More than a million people have been displaced.
Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said on Friday that he did not want truce talks with Kiev.
A ceasefire was agreed in Minsk in September but never fully took hold. Many hoped that the lower level of hostilities it introduced would last, but the BBC’s David Stern says that the fighting is beginning to approach what was seen last summer.
Mariupol has a population of 500,000 and is in a highly strategic position, sitting between rebel-held eastern areas and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia last March. The city saw heavy fighting in August.
“Today an offensive was launched on Mariupol. This will be the best possible monument to all our dead,” Alexander Zakharchenko was quoted as saying at a memorial ceremony in Donetsk.
A rebel spokesman earlier denied any involvement in the attack on Mariupol.
Unverified video footage on Saturday indicated that a number of cars, houses and apartment buildings had been struck and were in flames.
Our correspondent says the attack appeared to come from a multiple-rocket launcher, which fires a large number of missiles over a spread-out area.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has called for an urgent session of the UN Security Council to discuss what he says is Russia’s role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, 5 Canal TV reports.
“Russia is not only breaching the Minsk agreements – Russia is violating the fundamental principles of international law and humanity.
“They are stopping at nothing. The rockets even hit a children’s shop,” it quoted him as telling a meeting in Kiev called to discuss the escalation in Mariupol.
The head of the OSCE security and monitoring group’s mission to Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, described the shelling as a reckless, indiscriminate and disgraceful attack aimed at a heavily populated residential area.
“I condemn this violent act in the strongest terms and call for a full investigation of the incident.
“This dangerous situation can’t continue. We need an immediate ceasefire.”
On Friday, rebel military spokesman Eduard Basurin said 24 rebels had been killed and 30 wounded in recent fighting. He called it “the heaviest losses in our ranks” in a 24-hour period.
In another development, the rebel mayor of Pervomaysk, west of Luhansk, has been killed, reports say.
The body of Yevhen Ischchenko was found in a car. Three other men were apparently killed along with him. The local rebel leadership blamed Ukrainian agents, but other sources said it was the result of infighting.
Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany have all issued calls for an end to the fighting.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Russian regular troops are fighting alongside the separatists, using Russian heavy artillery and tanks. Moscow insists that only Russian “volunteers” have joined the rebels.
At least 27 people have been killed after heavy rockets fell on residential districts of Ukraine’s strategic government-held port of Mariupol in the wake of Russian-backed rebels’ rejection of peace talks.
Aleksandr Zakharchenko, a rebel leader, told Donetsk city residents later on Saturday that “battle for Mariupol has began”, effectively claiming responsibility for the earlier attack, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford reported from Donetsk.
The police chief of the war-torn region of Donetsk said on Saturday that the long-range Grad rockets hit a market in an eastern district facing roads that have come under attack from separatist militias in recent days.

Ukraine conflict divides families
Local council of Mariupol told Al Jazeera that at least 27 people were killed and dozens more were injured in Saturday’s attack.
Mariupol lies on the Azov Sea and is the major city between mainland Russia and the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
The pro-Kiev volunteer Azov regiment based around the city said there were “many wounded” in the attack. The Mariupol administration said the rockets hit a large market in one of the city’s main residential districts.
“Right now, there are problems with the cell phone network so it is impossible to call relatives who live in that part of town,” Mariupol resident Eduard told the AFP news agency.
“Obviously, everyone in the city is very scared. The rebels have already seized the airport. And now they are starting to destroy Mariupol itself.”
The attack has raised fears that Russian-backed separatist forces will try to establish a land link between Russia and Crimea.
Rebel forces have positions about 10 km from Mariupol’s eastern outskirts.
A massive rebel assault on the port in August led to intense fighting that saw Kiev repel the attack at a heavy cost that soon prompted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to agree to a September 5 truce.
That deal was followed by more clashes that killed at least 1,500 people and was ultimately rejected by the rebels on Friday.
The separatist leader of Donetsk vowed on Friday to escalate the nine-month campaign and seize lands in southeastern Ukraine that are currently under control of the pro-Western authorities.
Source: Aljazeera