Post by Admin on Dec 19, 2019 22:15:43 GMT
The Krasnopilske cemetery, just outside the city of Dnipro, is the biggest burial ground for soldiers who died during the conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine but whose identities are still unknown.
The majority of those who were buried here have been identified over the past five years - but nearly 104 graves are still decorated with crosses with the inscription: “Temporarily unidentified soldier.”
“September 11, 2014 was our first burial. Then every week - 11, 20 [bodies],” said Iryna Fedorchyuk, director of law enforcement cooperation and security at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration.
Fedorchyuk used to be an investigator, and she has been handling the burying of unidentified soldiers from 2014 onwards - ever since she received a call one night and was told to start digging graves.
“We got really frightened, to be honest, in September 2014 when we were told,” she recalled.
“We asked how many, and were told: ‘A lot.’ ‘But how many graves?’ ‘You need to start digging immediately.’”
Fedorchyuk’s task is to coordinate the activities of everyone searching for missing persons in the Dnipro area – investigators, soldiers, experts who have access to DNA databases, and relatives of those who died.
“Once we receive information about a 99.9 per cent [DNA] match, the investigator learns about everything connected to the case, the base of evidence, and handles the identification process, after which he contacts any relatives, and passes all this to them,” she explained.
“If they understand it all, then they turn to us – in Dnipro or [the south-eastern city of] Zaporizhya, and here we help them with organisation. We show where to go and help them in the reburial process, if the relatives want.”
Over the past five years since the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists began in the country’s east, Fedorchyuk has been witness to some appalling tragedies and unsettling incidents.
Once, she recalled, her office received the corpse of a soldier whose identity seemed impossible to establish.
“We couldn’t identify the body, because he didn’t have any parents, any direct relatives, no one to take [DNA] samples from. Enter his girlfriend, who says: ‘I’m pregnant.’ And once the child was born, we took a DNA sample and found a 99.9 per cent match,” she said.
“In another situation, one woman was calling us constantly: ‘I know that you gave me a body without a head. I know that you have some expert research going on – I have part of the body, please give it to me, I’ll be waiting for the head.’”
The majority of those who were buried here have been identified over the past five years - but nearly 104 graves are still decorated with crosses with the inscription: “Temporarily unidentified soldier.”
“September 11, 2014 was our first burial. Then every week - 11, 20 [bodies],” said Iryna Fedorchyuk, director of law enforcement cooperation and security at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration.
Fedorchyuk used to be an investigator, and she has been handling the burying of unidentified soldiers from 2014 onwards - ever since she received a call one night and was told to start digging graves.
“We got really frightened, to be honest, in September 2014 when we were told,” she recalled.
“We asked how many, and were told: ‘A lot.’ ‘But how many graves?’ ‘You need to start digging immediately.’”
Fedorchyuk’s task is to coordinate the activities of everyone searching for missing persons in the Dnipro area – investigators, soldiers, experts who have access to DNA databases, and relatives of those who died.
“Once we receive information about a 99.9 per cent [DNA] match, the investigator learns about everything connected to the case, the base of evidence, and handles the identification process, after which he contacts any relatives, and passes all this to them,” she explained.
“If they understand it all, then they turn to us – in Dnipro or [the south-eastern city of] Zaporizhya, and here we help them with organisation. We show where to go and help them in the reburial process, if the relatives want.”
Over the past five years since the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists began in the country’s east, Fedorchyuk has been witness to some appalling tragedies and unsettling incidents.
Once, she recalled, her office received the corpse of a soldier whose identity seemed impossible to establish.
“We couldn’t identify the body, because he didn’t have any parents, any direct relatives, no one to take [DNA] samples from. Enter his girlfriend, who says: ‘I’m pregnant.’ And once the child was born, we took a DNA sample and found a 99.9 per cent match,” she said.
“In another situation, one woman was calling us constantly: ‘I know that you gave me a body without a head. I know that you have some expert research going on – I have part of the body, please give it to me, I’ll be waiting for the head.’”