385 bodies were found on liberated territories of the Donetsk region

In the Donetsk region, law enforcement officers found 385 bodies on the territories liberated from Russian troops, and 282 people have been identified so far.

"A total of 385 bodies have been found by Donetsk police in the de-occupied territories, 309 of them are civilians. Among the victims of the Russian aggression are 174 men, 117 women, and 6 children, the sex of 12 more people has not been established. The work to identify the dead continues. As of today, 282 people have been identified," the statement said.

For six months now, law enforcement officers have been finding new graves and unidentified bodies in the liberated Lyman and Sviatohirsk communities. They are examining the sites of the shelling, interviewing locals, looking for relatives of the victims, identifying witnesses, and reconstructing the course of events.

Investigators and forensic laboratories are involved in the exhumation, and in cases of possible mining, explosives experts are also involved. Information about the death of a person is entered into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, after which the cause of death is determined in a forensic medical institution. To identify the body, DNA samples are taken and comparative examinations with possible relatives are conducted.

For example, in the village of Bohorodichne, which was almost destroyed by Russian troops, two elderly women and a man were exhumed. The civilians were buried in one of the yards.

The bodies of three other civilian men were exhumed in Lyman. It has been preliminarily established that two of them died as a result of shelling, and the third died of natural causes.

In addition to civilians, the bodies of military personnel are also being searched for. For example, after the liberation of Lyman, a mass grave with fallen members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was found in the city cemetery, and work began to identify each of them.

Author - Serhii Kolomiets, 11/05/2023