Clashes in Ukraine’s Crimea kill one person

At least one person has died and over a dozen others injured in violent clashes between pro- and anti-Russian protesters in Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The region’s health ministry said an unidentified man died of a heart attack during the protest, which was held outside the Crimean parliament in Simferopol, the administrative center of the autonomous republic.

An unnamed health official said that at least 20 people were also injured in the clashes between the two groups.

The violence erupted when both sides shouted and attacked each other with stones, bottles and punches. Police and leaders of both rallies tried to keep the two groups apart.

This is while a Russian parliamentary delegation has arrived in Crimea, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Naval Fleet, to evaluate the situation in southern Ukraine.

The Russian lawmakers said residents of Crimea could claim Russian citizenship and if Crimeans and their parliament decide to be part of Russia again, Moscow would welcome the idea.

Elsewhere in the autonomous republic, pro-Russian protesters staged a demonstration in the region’s largest city of Sevastopol. The protesters voiced opposition against the Western-backed leaders in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Meanwhile, three former Ukrainian presidents – Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko – have accused Russia of interfering in their country’s internal affairs.

Ukraine has been the scene of anti-government protests since November last year, when Yanukovych refrained from signing an Association Agreement with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia.

On February 23, the Ukrainian parliament ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and named Oleksandr Turchynov, the legislature’s newly-elected speaker, as interim president.