Shelling in kills four civilians, soldier

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists accused each other on Thursday of shelling civilian areas near the rebel-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine despite a ceasefire, with four civilians and one soldier killed.

A Ukrainian military spokesman told a news briefing that two men were killed in Dzerzhynsk, north of the regional hub, when separatists opened fire from Horlivka, 7.5 km (4.7 miles) away.

Separatists, in turn, accused Ukrainians of using tanks and artillery in an overnight attack on Horlivka in which a man and a woman were killed.

The casualty reports could not be independently verified.

More than 6,500 people have been killed since the fighting broke out in April last year. Attacks have lessened since a peace agreement was brokered in Minsk, Belarus, in February, but both sides accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.