Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk stated that Kiev calls for a UN Security Council meeting in light of Saturday's shelling of Ukraine's southeastern city of Mariupol.

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KIEV, January 24 (Sputnik)Kiev calls for a UN Security Council meeting in light of Saturday's shelling of Ukraine's southeastern city of Mariupol, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Saturday.

"We call on our Western partners and the UN Security Council to immediately convene a UN Security Council meeting," the Ukrainian prime minister said during an emergency response center meeting.

According to Yatsenyuk, 16 people were killed and 86 injured during the shelling.

Earlier on Saturday, the Kiev forces said that eastern Ukraine's militias shelled the suburbs of Mariupol in Donetsk Region.

The same day, the representative of the Donetsk People's Republic militia denied the allegations, telling RIA Novosti that eastern Ukraine's militia did not have artillery systems near Mariupol that would allow the shelling of the affected area.

The controversy concerning Mariupol comes in light of the recent upsurge in violence in eastern Ukraine. Clashes between Kiev forces and eastern Ukraine militia intensified in the first weeks of 2015, despite a ceasefire agreement reached in September, and a “silence regime” introduced in the region on December 9.

A week ago, Kiev started a large military operation at Donetsk airport and intensified the shelling of Donetsk. Shelling was also reported in Luhansk.

On Friday, the UN High Human Rights Office reported that over 5,000 people have been killed in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine since April. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on Saturday expressed concern over the increasing number of civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine and called on the parties to the conflict to cease hostilities.