At a rebel checkpoint in war-torn eastern Ukraine, camouflaged gunmen on a deserted road hurriedly wave through cars with hand-written signs reading "children" taped to their windscreens.
Like the few other vehicles risking the journey, these cars are packed with fearful residents fleeing the latest fighting as the battle between the rebels and the Ukrainian army draws closer to the regional centre of Donetsk.
"Wherever the fighting is going on, they are fleeing. They bring out their relatives, their cars are full of kids. They are running away from the war," rebel soldier Maxim, 21, told AFP.
The former engineering student said those fleeing came from the towns in northeastern Ukraine currently experiencing the most deadly bombardments and shortages as government troops close in on pro-Russian rebels.
"Yesterday a bus drove past here from Shakhtarsk. It didn't have a single unbroken window left," chimed in his colleague from a makeshift gun nest, two Kalashnikovs by his side.
Those escaping the violence, which has already claimed over 1,100 lives, are mainly heading to cities on the Azov Sea in the south -- an area that is now under Ukrainian control, Maxim admitted.
"That's where the (Ukrainian) National Guard is, I don't know how they're not scared to go because it is calling up men from 18," he added.
The open-faced, deeply-tanned youth in a camouflage T-shirt and worn black trousers, said he had dropped out of his studies to join the rebels.
Moving in front of cars in the queue were a couple on a motorbike, heavily loaded with their belongings packed into check-patterned bags.
"They started firing over our house. It became impossible to live there," said the young man after he stopped at the checkpoint and took off his helmet to rest.
The couple, who would not give their names, said they lived near Shakhtarsk, a town which has seen heavy fighting in recent days.
Asked when there was last fighting in their neighbourhood, they replied, "This morning."
In the village of Orlovo-Ivanivka, around 10 kilometres (six miles) from the crash site of downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, women chatting outside the local grocery store were tearful as they recounted how they had sent away their children.
