Alina nervously waits under heavy rain for a truck to unload dozens of corpses in the Bucha morgue. This 24-year-old girl has to recognize the body of her father, of which she knows nothing since the Russian troops entered this punished town and massacred her population.
“Every day they bring new corpses and I come here to see if I can find my father… Let’s see if I can find him among all these dead people & rdquor ;, says Alina, surrounded by a dozen Bucha neighbors who are in the same situation as her.
Some have been trying to identify their loved ones for more than a month
Alina’s father had a farm on the outskirts of Bucha, where he continued to take care of his cattle even when Russian troops showed up with tanks in front of his house. Until one day no one knew anything more about him.
After reviewing the corpses one by one, some of them in an advanced state of decomposition and others with signs of torture, the young woman leaves the morgue and calls her mother: “I have not seen her body… perhaps he is alive & rdquor ;, she tells him.
A tragedy called Bucha
The Ukrainian authorities say that the bodies of 420 civilians have already been found in Bucha alonea small and well-to-do town that shocked the world after discovering the atrocities committed by the Russians against its population before their withdrawal.
Nevertheless, every day new bodies appear in wells, mass graves or in private gardens. The neighbors themselves had to bury the dead with their hands so that the corpses did not remain in the street.
Now the job is identify the dead and deliver the bodies to families so they can be properly buriedeither. For this, the city council has drawn up a long list with the names of the people who died during the occupation and with the little data that has been compiled about the unidentified bodies.
Residents go to an information point every day, to find out if the authorities have found her relative, as is the case with Olexi, who is looking for the body of her best friend’s husband because she fled to Poland with her two children.
The husband was shot by Russian troops when he tried to escape from Bucha by car and, according to Olexi, some neighbors picked up the body and buried it in the garden of the couple’s house, with a sign around their necks on which they wrote their name to that could be recognized more easily.
“He is buried in the garden, but they still don’t know exactly where. They are still looking for the body & rdquor ; the Mint.
Forensics, overwhelmed
A couple of coroners run restlessly from one side of the morgue to the other before the dozens of corpses that arrive to be investigated, only pausing briefly to take a couple of puffs on the cigarette.
“The problem is that there are too many bodies and there are only two experts to work here&rdquor ;, assures Efe the adviser to the mayor of Bucha, Mijailiya Skoryk, who adds that before the war each coroner worked with seven bodies a month: “Now they have to analyze ten every day&rdquor ;, he exclaims.
So, have requested the collaboration of experts from other morgues in the difficult task of identifying corpses: some have to undergo DNA tests because the bodies were completely charred or unrecognizable.
The dead who weren’t killed
Serguei has also gone to Bucha to find the body of his grandmotherwho before the Russian occupation was hospitalized for covid-19 and, when the bombing began, died of a heart attack.
His body and dozens of others were taken from the morgue by the neighbors themselves and buried to prevent decomposition.. Many of them were buried in a mass grave dug in the courtyard of the village church.
“They have shown us photos and in one it seems that it is her, but we have to go see the body because in the photo it does not look good& rdquor ;, regrets the young man, who on March 12 undertook this painful search to be able to bury his grandmother “as human beings do & rdquor ;.
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The authorities have informed him that the body is very likely to be found in the Common pit, where dozens of bodies have already been unearthed, both of people killed by the Russians and of people who died of natural causes. The Police assure that there are still neighbors buried in that improvised cemetery.
“We will have to return more times… We cannot know 100% if it is the body of my grandmother & rdquor ;, Serguei sighs while he is on his way to his car, with which he will have to return tomorrow to continue the search.