Mass burial site in Izyum

In the cities and towns of Ukraine freed from the occupation of Russian troops, the places of spontaneous burials of murdered and tortured local civilians continue to be discovered.

Kharkiv region

“Death is in the air”: 125 bodies of the dead in Izyum are still unidentified

According to representatives of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, it is even difficult to take DNA samples from some bodies. Eight relatives of 71-year-old Galina Zakharova were killed during an air raid on a residential building, the bodies of seven were exhumed, and the granddaughter still cannot be identified.

Residents of the city of Izyum are afraid to take a careless step in order not to step on a mine, and those who survived are painfully waiting for the identification of the bodies of their dead relatives. The Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated the city in Kharkiv region in September, but the consequences of the six-month Russian occupation are still visible.

Izyum is among the Ukrainian cities most affected by Russian brutality. It was the main logistics hub for Russian troops.

Civilians were tortured, forcibly taken away and detained here. Later, mass graves with hundreds of bodies were discovered, entire residential areas were destroyed during the fighting.

52 dead in the basement of the building

The family of local resident Galina Zakharova died after Russian pilots dropped a bomb on her son’s house. Then 52 people who hid in the basement died, including eight of her relatives.

“It was an air raid, the plane dropped bombs directly on the houses. They were in the basement, in the middle. They all died there,” said a 71-year-old woman.

The bodies of seven of her relatives were exhumed in September, and she is still waiting for her granddaughter to be identified.

Exhumation of bodies

The police are exhuming the bodies from the graves to determine exactly how the people were killed. Some graves have names, others only serial numbers. Journalists who have visited here note that death can be felt in the local air.

In total, the bodies of 451 people were exhumed in Izyum, including 440 found in mass burials, 125 are still unidentified, explained Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region. According to him, it is even difficult to take DNA samples from some decomposed bodies.

According to him, after visiting the places of mass burials, he feels an increased responsibility to establish justice and bring the perpetrators to justice.