Moscow, Jan 31 (IANS): Russia's 12th humanitarian aid convoy to the east Ukrainian Donbass region has reached there, Moscow's emergencies ministry said Saturday.
The convoy consists of 170 trucks and carries over 1,500 tonnes of relief supplies, including food, medicine, essentials and other necessities, Xinhua reported.
Customs clearance is being done in the presence of Ukrainian customs officers and monitors of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the ministry added.
The convoy will split into two teams.
One will proceed to the Donetsk border checkpoint and then to Luhansk, while the other will travel to the Matveyev Kurgan checkpoint and then head to Donetsk.
Since August 2014, the Russian emergencies ministry has sent 11 humanitarian aid convoys with over 14,800 tonnes of relief supplies to the restive eastern Ukraine, where residents have been suffering from a serious humanitarian crisis since the ongoing conflict between Ukrainian government forces and independence-seeking militia which began in April last year.
More than 5,000 people have died in the nine-month-old conflict, and over 1.5 million people have been displaced.