Fresh Shelling Near Two Key Ukrainian Cities Rocks Ceasefire

Fresh shelling hit areas near two key cities in eastern Ukraine Sunday, raising fears that the ceasefire that took effect two days ago might be falling apart.

The shells hit near the Donetsk airport and the outskirts of the key city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, BBC reports.

The fragile truce between the Ukrainian government and the pro-Russian separatists began Friday evening. By Saturday, both sides had begun accusing each other of violating it. However, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, sounds of irregular artillery and machine guns rocked the outskirts of Mariupol, CNN reports. It was learnt later that a woman had been killed, a gas station had been set on fire and cars were witnessed carrying injured civilians.

The Mariupol city government accused the pro-Russian rebels of carrying out the shelling near the city overnight. The rebels had been heading towards Donets airport as well as Mariupol before the ceasefire took effect.

On Thursday, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and the heads of the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had agreed to a ceasefire at 11 a.m. local time Friday, September 5, 2014.

The rebel leaders, in a statement, had said that they would agree to the ceasefire. They had said they are "ready to order a ceasefire on September 5, 2014 at 15:00MSK (11:00GMT) if agreement is reached and the Ukrainian representatives sign up to the plan for a political settlement of the conflict," Telesur reports.

The fighting in the east has claimed around 2,600 lives since April. On Sunday, Ukrainian security official Volodymyr Poliovyi informed that 864 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began.