Authorities in Ukraine are reporting that four civilians were killed when Russia-backed separatists fired into a residential area of the town of Avdiyivka.

One person was seriously injured in the May 13 incident and has been hospitalized.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Zhebrivskyy posted on Facebook that the shelling happened in the evening and that three of the fatalities were women.

Local police said two children who were in the area were not injured.

The Ukrainian government has been fighting against Russia-backed separatists in parts of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since April 2014. More than 9,500 people have been killed in the fighting.

Although Russia denies military involvement in the conflict, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2016 determined the conflict to be "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation."

With reporting by UNIAN