Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska has denied reports of orphans being killed or injured during the shelling of a bus carrying them in Donetsk region on July 28.

"All of the children who left Donetsk arrived unharmed in the town of Mariupol together with their teachers," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, adding that explosions had indeed been heard near the bus, but no one opened fire deliberately on the bus.

Earlier, the head of the Information Resistance group, Dmytro Tymchuk, said: "Yesterday, at a section of the Donetsk-Volnovakha highway, DPR militants shot a minibus with children who were being evacuated from orphanages in the Donbas... One child was killed. About ten children sustained various injuries."

He said that by prior agreement with the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic minibuses transporting about 60 children left Donetsk for Mariupol.

The Health Ministry said that this case did not involve children whose transportation was carried out under the supervision of the ministry.