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Fighting intensifies in eastern Ukraine

Fighting has started again in eastern Ukraine between government troops and separatist rebels, Ukrainian military officials said.

Yesterday a missile killed at least 15 refugees who were trying to flee the area "burning them alive". More bodies may still be recovered.

This comes days after a convoy of aid supplies travelled to the country from Moscow but Ukraine is still to let them in over fears it could spark an invasion.

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Refugees 'burned alive' as convoy hit by missile

File photo of refugees from the city of Luhansk sit inside a car at a checkpoint near the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve on 16 August. Credit: Reuters

Refugees trapped in their vehicles after a missile hit the convoy they were travelling in were "burned alive," a Ukraine military spokesman has said.

"The force of the blow on the convoy was so strong that people were burned alive in the vehicles - they weren't able to get themselves out," military spokesman Anatoly Proshin told Ukrainian news channel 112.ua, Reuters reported.

Around 500 people a day have been fleeing Luhansk, a pro-Russian separatist stronghold that has been battered by months of fighting between rebels and Ukrainian forces and left almost entirely without water and electricity for more than two weeks.

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