Four people remain missing, including two children, following a Russian strike that killed 52 people in Hroza village, Serhiy Bolvinov, the head of the investigative department of the regional police, said on Oct. 6.
Bolvinov said that recovery operation is over.
At least 60 people were gathered in the cafe for a memorial service for a fallen soldier who was being reburied in the village.
While the rescue phase of the operation was over by 8 p.m. on Oct. 5, workers spent the next day going "through every brick and removed all the remains of the bodies," Bolvinov said.
The emergency services used specially-trained dogs to search for the dead.
Bodies that have not been identified have been sent to laboratories to undergo DNA testing. In some cases, only small fragments of the bodies remained, he added.
The attack wiped out over half of the village's population, in what became the single deadliest Russian attack against civilians in 2023.
The attack was likely carried out with a Russian Iskander ballistic missile and was targeted, according to the local police.
Olena Goncharova
