AKIPRESS.COM - Dozens of protesters in a Ukrainian town have attacked buses carrying evacuees from coronavirus-hit China, BBC reports.

The evacuees were brought to a health spa in Novi Sanzhary, in the central Poltava region, where they will be held in quarantine for 14 days.

President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the protesters to show empathy.

Ukraine's security service (SBU) said a fake email claiming to be from the health ministry falsely said some evacuees had contracted the virus.

SBU officials are now investigating the apparent hoax, a statement said.

Ukraine has no confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, which originated last year in China's Hubei province.