The bodies of 385 Ukrainian civilians and military personnel have been discovered since liberating parts of Donetsk Oblast in the fall of 2022, the National Police reported on May 10.
Of the total number of bodies discovered by local law enforcement in the liberated territories, 309 of them are civilians. Those found include 174 men, 117 women, and six children. The gender of 12 additional people has not yet been determined due to the state of their bodies.
So far, the identities of 282 people have been identified, the National Police said.
Law enforcement has been examining the sites attacked by Russian troops, interviewing local residents, and searching for the relatives of identified victims. It has also been identifying witnesses and reconstructing events.
"The goal of the investigators is to establish the identity and fate of each murdered person," the National Police wrote.
When exhuming bodies from mass burial sites, investigators reportedly have to beware that bodies have not been buried with explosives by Russian troops.
DNA samples are collected to compare with possible relatives before making a definitive match and information about the death of each individual is entered into a database, the National Police wrote.
Following the liberation of Lyman in the fall of 2022, a mass grave with fallen Ukrainian army personnel was found in the city cemetery.
Additionally, the bodies of three civilian men were exhumed in Lyman. Two of them died as a result of shelling, and the third died during the Russian occupation of natural causes, the National Police wrote.
In the village of Bohorodychne, which has been almost completely destroyed by Russian forces, the bodies of two elderly women and a man were exhumed from their yards.
The Kyiv Independent
(Updated: )
