Ukrainians Queue For Water As Shelling Nears

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By Katie Stallard, Moscow Correspondent, in Luhansk

A humanitarian crisis is deepening in villages on the frontline of the conflict in Ukraine, with US Secretary of State John Kerry due to hold talks with the country's president.

Sky News has travelled to some of the areas worst-hit by the ongoing fighting, with a significant number now suffering without any running water.

They include the small village of Irmina, where people are being forced to queue for water from a local well and many are struggling to survive without power.

The shelling has been getting closer, food supplies are running low and people are running out of money.

But there is no major rescue effort in the village, located in Lukansk region. Help is not getting through and people say they have seen no humanitarian aid convoys.

"We have no jobs, we have nothing, how can we live?" one man asked.

"Shells were coming down - we were all sitting in the basements."

Sky News visited the village as Mr Kerry headed to Kiev for talks with Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko.

We met Svetlana Zorina, who works as a nurse at the maternity unit in the next town, queuing for water with her son. She told us she has not been paid since September.

"We have no water, sometimes no light. And they say that the water won't be back for a long time, because a shell hit the pipe," she said.

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Gallery: Several Dead After Hospital Shelled

The shell hit around midday

Reports say four people were killed and several injured

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The hospital was badly damaged

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More than 5,300 people have already been killed in the war

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Another round of peace talks collapsed earlier this week

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"They are shelling all the time. Today in the maternity hospital the windows were shaking, during the day and all night."

In the village market, stall after stall has closed down, and where there is food for sale there are few with money to buy it.

The Ukrainian government has cut off pensions to those living in rebel-controlled areas and the social care system is breaking down.

The self-proclaimed separatist "people's republics" have yet to fund an alternative.

"They're coming but they have no money, even to buy bread," stallholder Nina Andreeyevna said.

"We are helping some of them, but we can't help everyone - me, myself, I am one of them, I have no pension."

We heard rocket and artillery fire close to the village - parents are afraid to let their children play outside here now.

At a children's residential school we saw shrapnel damage to the walls, and the hollow of a mortar strike in the playground, reportedly one of several in the summer.

Teachers said the children were sleeping in the basement at night for safety, as fighting has intensified in the area over the last two weeks.

Those who could be sent home have gone back to their families, but staff are still caring for several children with special needs and a little girl who was orphaned three weeks ago.

"We always have winter clothes in our common room, because it's cold down there in the basement," teacher Lyudmila Anatoleyevna said.

"If we have electricity we use the heaters, if not we work with what we have.

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Gallery: Ukrainian Army's New Conscripts

Conscripts attend a ceremony marking their enrolment in the Ukrainian army in Kiev

Relatives react as they attend the ceremony. Ukraine's parliament voted to refresh its front-line forces and resume partial conscription after a top security official warned Russian forces backing rebels had sharply increased military activity in the country's east. Continue through for more images

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"It's dangerous to go to school because the classroom is located in a different building, so they are spending their free time here in this building."

The teachers are not being paid and are dependent on local donations of food and medicine for the children.

The frontline in this region extends across a vast, rural area, leaving many small towns and villages increasingly isolated.

The recent upsurge in violence has prompted expressions of concern from the international community, but the fighting here has been going on for many months and conditions for people living here are deteriorating.

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Malu Rasanya