(Kyiv) “Ten torture chambers” have been discovered in localities in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine, recently retaken from the Russians, national police chief Igor Klymenko said on Friday.
Posted at 6:53 a.m.
“To date, I can speak of at least ten torture chambers (discovered) in localities of the Kharkiv region”, including two in the small town of Balaklya, he said, quoted by the agency. Interfax-Ukraine.
Hundreds of graves
AFP journalists saw hundreds of cross-marked graves in a forest on the outskirts of Izium, a town recently recaptured from Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine, on Friday.
The Ukrainian authorities were notably on the spot examining a grave containing the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, surmounted by a cross bearing the inscription “Ukrainian army, 17 people. Izioum, from the morgue”.
At the same time, several teams of deminers were busy looking for possible mines or explosive devices in the surroundings, not far from an older cemetery.
According to Oleg Kotenko, government official for the search for missing persons, this discovery was made thanks to a video posted on social networks. A man said there: “we must take the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the morgue and bury them because Ukraine does not want them”.
The graves at this site were dug during the fighting when the city was captured by Russian forces in March and during the Russian occupation, which ended last week, Kotenko said. They are 443 in number.
“I saw number 443. I didn’t see number one,” he told AFP on the spot, before adding: “we estimate the total number of deaths (linked to the conflict and during the occupation, Ed) according to the numbers”. But according to him, “some graves can also contain two or three people”.
According to Mr. Kotenko, “the graves that do not bear names are those of people (found) in the street”.
Moreover, still according to Mr. Kotenko, “there are a lot of people who died of hunger. This part of the city was isolated, without supplies. People were stuck, nothing was working.”
“There are also other cemeteries in the city but we didn’t go there. So we don’t know what the situation is” as a whole, he added.
Asked about the possibility of a war crime for the 17 Ukrainian soldiers, Mr. Kotenko replied: “Russia attacked Ukraine. If Russia hadn’t attacked Ukraine, they (the bodies) wouldn’t be there. It is a crime when one country attacks another”.