IZIOUM, Ukraine, September 17 (Reuters) – Wearing white protective suits, rubber gloved hands, Ukrainian rescue workers exhumed on Saturday new bodies at the funeral site near the town of Izioum (northeast) recently reconquered by Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine says hundreds of people are buried at the wooden site discovered this week, including at least 17 Ukrainian servicemen thrown into a mass grave. Other bodies could be those of civilians buried in individual graves marked with a wooden cross.
The causes of the deaths have not yet been established, but residents claim that some of the victims were killed in an airstrike.
According to Ukrainian authorities, at least one body had its hands tied and rope marks on its neck.
Moscow has no comment on the discovery of the graves which the Ukrainians regard as evidence of new war crimes committed by Russia, which has regularly denied committing atrocities or targeting civilians.
Reuters saw workers shoveling at least five graves, while forensics and investigators photographed the finds and inspected the bodies.
Investigators said the condition of the teeth showed that some of the deceased were aged.
“Exhumations are underway. Their identities are not known at this time,” said Roman Kasianenko, a regional prosecutor who also announced the identification of three bodies exhumed on Friday.
Residents of the region also went there, like Volodimir Kolesnik, on the trail of relatives killed, according to him, during an airstrike on a building, shortly before the fall of the city in April.
GRAVE NUMBER 199
Last week, Ukraine recaptured dozens of towns and villages in the region in a surprise counterattack.
The regional governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Sinehubov, evoked Friday very deadly airstrikes on a building of five floors which occurred shortly before the beginning of the Russian occupation. A Ukrainian military official said in May that around 40 people had been killed in an attack in the city.
Reuters could not immediately verify details of the attack or who buried the bodies.
Volodimir Kolesnik said he knew his relatives had been taken to this site for burial and that he did not dare to come there earlier due to the Russian occupation.
After checking a list in his possession, he placed on grave number 199 a small sign bearing the name of his cousin, Yuri Yakovenko.
The cross number 164 corresponds according to him to the latter’s wife. And the number 174 designates his aunt, the mother of his late cousin.
He said he got the list from a local undertaker, who dug the graves.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said Saturday that evidence of torture had been found on exhumed bodies, adding that a dozen torture sites had been discovered in the liberated territory since the beginning of the month.
The head of the administration installed by Russia for his part accused the Ukrainians of having committed atrocities. “I haven’t heard anything about the burials,” Vitaly Ganchev told Rossiya-24 state television. (Report Ivan Lyubysh-Kirde; French version Elizabeth Pineau)