Macabre scenes in a city devastated by fighting. The bodies of at least twenty men wearing civilian clothes lay on Saturday April 2 in a street in Boutcha, north-west of kyiv, which Ukrainian soldiers have just taken back from Russian forces, a journalist from the Agency noted on the spot. France-Presse.
One of the men had his hands tied and the bodies were strewn for several hundred yards. The cause of their death could not be determined immediately, but one person had a large head wound.
In recent days, Russian forces have withdrawn from several localities near the capital after the failure of their encirclement attempt. Ukraine announced that Butcha had been “liberated”but this city has been devastated by the fighting: there can be gaping holes caused by shells in apartment buildings and many carcasses.
“We have already buried 280 people”
Sixteen of the twenty corpses discovered were on the sidewalk or on the curb. Three were in the middle of the road and another in the courtyard of a house. An open Ukrainian passport lay on the ground next to the person who had his hands tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth.
All of the dead men were wearing winter coats, jackets or tracksuit tops, jeans or jogging bottoms, and sneakers or boots. Two of them were lying next to bicycles, another next to an abandoned car. Some were lying on their backs, while others were on their stomachs. The skin on the faces looked waxy, suggesting that the corpses had been there for at least several days.
Hundreds of deaths have been recorded in the city, according to its mayor Anatoly Fedorouk. “In Boutcha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves”because it was impossible to do so in the three cemeteries of the municipality, all within firing range of the Russian soldiers, Mr. Fedorouk told AFP.
“In some streets, we see fifteen to twenty corpses on the ground”corn “I can’t say how many there are still in the courtyards, behind the palisades”continued the mayor. “As long as the deminers have not come to check them, it is not recommended to pick them up” because they can be trapped, he further said. “These are the consequences of the Russian occupation, of the actions” of the enemy.
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