Shelling in the center of the main rebel-held city in Ukraine’s east killed a Swiss Red Cross worker on Thursday, tearing badly at a weakly observed four-week truce meant to defuse Europe’s worst crisis in decades.
The attacks in Donetsk were the first to strike the heart of the city since the signing of the truce on Sept. 5 between Kiev and Moscow.
Parts of the eastern coal mining hub — once home to nearly a million Russian speakers, but now half-abandoned — were on fire after rockets slammed into a 14-story central shopping center shortly before 6pm.
Reporters saw another shell shatter the windows of the Donetsk headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the body of the Swiss man lying face down nearby.
A Donetsk emergencies worker told reporters that the man killed was a Red Cross employee normally based in Geneva. The Red Cross confirmed the death of staff member Laurent DuPasquier, 38, who was an administrator at the aid agency’s office in Donetsk.
“We are deeply shocked by this tragic loss,” Red Cross director of operations Dominik Stillhart said in a statement.
“We understand that there were other civilian casualties in Donetsk today. Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas is unacceptable and violates international humanitarian law,” he said.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.
The attack represented a dangerous new escalation in a conflict that — despite intensified European mediation — has entered its sixth month with the death toll climbing above 3,200 and East-West relations plumbing a post-Cold War low.
Russia, which is accused by the West of militarily backing the pro-Moscow rebels holding Donetsk and other parts of eastern Ukraine, reacted to the Red Cross worker’s death.
“ICRC please accept our sincere condolences. He came to help and to save — not to die,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an English-language tweet.
It added that the “bloodshed must stop” in eastern Ukraine.
NATO claims hundreds of elite Russian forces are forming the backbone of the insurgency in Ukraine.
The rebels recently surged back powerfully against a Ukrainian military campaign against them, before the ceasefire was worked out to create a buffer zone along the front line.
However, the truce has been only patchily observed, and fighting in some areas has continued.
Nearly 70 Ukrainian troops and civilians, along with an undisclosed number of separatist gunmen, have been killed since the start of the 12-point peace pact.
On Thursday, smoke billowed over the northern half of Donetsk as the rebels tried to stage a final push on the city’s devastated airport, their strategic target since May.
“There is a huge fire burning at the airport. It is probably due to the fuel,” a representative at the Donetsk separatist headquarters said as periodic rounds of machine-gun fire echoed through deserted streets.
The rebel representative said gunmen had briefly entered a section of the main terminal of what was once the east’s busiest air hub before they were repelled.
The rebels continue to reject Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s efforts to save the ex-Soviet country from disintegration through the offer of autonomy to its ethnically Russian parts.
The upsurge in violence prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel — viewed as Kiev’s closest and most powerful European ally — to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and remind him of Moscow’s “responsibility” to rein in the rebels.
Ukraine’s security concerns have been exacerbated by a new gas war with Russia that threatens to leave parts of the near-bankrupt country without heating through winter.
Russia nearly doubled Ukraine’s gas price a few weeks after the February ouster in Kiev of a Kremlin-backed president who had earlier rejected a historic EU trade and political association deal.
Kiev refused to make the extra payment, and Russia’s decision in June to cut Ukrainian shipments has fueled an economic meltdown that has forced world powers to cobble together US$27 billion in emergency aid.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was