4 killed, 20 injured after bus hits landmine in Ukraine
At least four people have been killed and 20 more injured after a bus struck a landmine near a government-controlled town in eastern Ukraine, officials say.
The driver of the passenger bus veered away from a government checkpoint and instead took a side road near the town of Artemivsk, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the violence-wracked city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, on Wednesday, said Ilia Kiva, a government-loyal deputy police chief in the Donetsk region.
“Today (Wednesday), at around 1900 (1700GMT)... a landmine blew up a passenger bus carrying civilians…. The explosion... killed four,” the official added.
Ukraine military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, confirmed that 20 people had been injured in the blast. At least three of the injured remain in serious condition.
Landmines have been strewn across rural roads and agricultural fields within conflict areas in Ukraine in an attempt to make them impassable.
In January, Ukrainian authorities established a network of checkpoints for those travelling between government held and rebel-held areas.
Many residents without the necessary paperwork have attempted to bypass the checkpoints but fall victim to the violence.
Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Russians and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence the pro-Moscow protests in mid-April.
More than 6,000 people have been killed and nearly 1.2 million have been displaced since April 2014, after Ukraine’s Crimea voted in a referendum to re-join Russia.
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