Kiev, Sep 17 (IANS): At least three civilians died in eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours as fighting between government forces and insurgents continued, authorities said Wednesday.

In Donetsk, two people were killed and three others injured in artillery shelling, the municipal council said in a statement, according to Xunhua.

In Lugansk region, a woman who was picking mushrooms near the site of recent battles was killed by a landmine explosion, said Andrei Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council.

Lysenko said Ukrainian forces suffered no losses over the past 24 hours, but confrontation was continuing in several towns in the restive Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

The rebels kept deploying forces and weapons in heavily populated areas of seized towns and cities across the regions, he said.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk stressed the necessity to end the violence in eastern part of the country, saying that Ukraine was incurring losses of $6.5 million per day as a result of the crisis.

Clashes between Ukrainian government troops and pro-independence insurgents since mid-April have claimed over 3,000 lives and injured around 8,000 people.

To pave the way for a solution to the crisis, Ukraine's government and the insurgent leadership inked a ceasefire deal Sep 5, which helped de-escalate the situation although the ceasefire was often violated.