At least 17 people were killed and six injured in an attack on a refugee convoy in the eastern Luhansk region, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday.
Fighting continues around the town of Lutuhyne, near where the convoy was attacked, the website of Ukraine's counterterrorism operation said, reports GHN based on CNN.
The injured are hospitalized there, but the perimeter of the area is under fire, so no investigators or journalists can reach the scene.
A spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council earlier said that the bodies of 15 civilians had been recovered as of Monday night.
Col. Andriy Lysenko told a press briefing in Kiev that Ukrainian forces were being prevented from recovering other casualties by "fighting in the area which is still controlled by the separatists."
The Ukrainian military said Monday that women and children were among those killed in the attack on the caravan of refugees.
The civilians were trying to escape fighting between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian military but were not in an established humanitarian safety corridor when they came under fire, a military representative said.
Lysenko said Tuesday that the convoy was traveling from Luhansk to Lutuhyne when it was attacked.
Militants are now blocking access to the area around the destroyed convoy and are shooting at all vehicles in the area, he said.
Meanwhile, fierce fighting continues for control of the city of Luhansk, a stronghold for pro-Russian rebels.
The Ukrainian military has retaken one district, Lysenko said, and there is street fighting in the city center.