REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KIEV -- At least 27 people, including 15 civilians were killed and scores more wounded amid fierce fighting between government troops and pro-independence rebels in eastern Ukraine in the last 24 hours, reports showed Tuesday.

Six people, including an eleven-old child were killed and 18 injured as battles were raging in small towns across Donetsk region, the regional department of the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Five other people died and 13 were wounded in artillery fire in the city of Donetsk, local municipal council said.

In the neighboring Lugansk region, four civilians were killed and three others injured in the fresh violence in Novotoshkovka and Popasna towns, the press service of Lugansk regional administration said.

Over the past day, hostilities were raging in 35 cities and towns across Ukraine's restive east, a government military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said, noting that five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 27 others wounded in the bloodshed.

Meanwhile, Eduard Basurin, the senior insurgent commander, said seven rebel fighters were killed and 20 injured during the previous day's confrontation with Ukrainian government forces.

Earlier in the day, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said that at least 224 civilians were killed since fighting intensified in eastern Ukraine last month, bringing the total death toll in the ten-month- long conflict to well over 5,000 people.

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