Luhansk region: morgues overflowing, dead buried in courtyards

Denys Karlovsky – Tuesday, 12 April 2022, 18:41

Serhiy Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, said that morgues in the region are overflowing and the dead are being buried in the courtyards of apartment blocks.

Source: Serhiy Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, on Facebook

According to Haidai: "Morgues in Ukrainian-controlled cities are overflowing with the bodies of dead and murdered civilians. There are power outages, sometimes no power at all. Bodies are being kept in basements. It is impossible to keep them for long, so volunteers and municipal service workers are burying them on newly created burial grounds between bouts of shelling.

All of the cemeteries lie beyond the city limits and it is impossible to bury anyone there due to constant shelling.

Where it is possible to access cemeteries just outside of city limits, bodies are taken there.

They are being buried in special body bags with metal plates [mounted on crosses over the graves -ed]  recording as much information about each person as possible.

With time we will definitely do everything properly…

Eternal memory…"

Details: The dead are being buried in mass graves in Lysychansk.

In Sievierodonetsk, the local government has been able to organise a burial site in a relatively safe place.

Graves are being dug with a tractor, and the dead are being buried in separate graves. Information about them is being entered in a register.

According to Haidai, during the 48 days of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, about 400 civilians have been buried in Sievierodonetsk, most of whom have been identified.

In Popasna and Rubizhne the constant devastating shelling of the Russian occupiers makes it impossible to recover the bodies of the dead. The residents of these cities are resorting to burying people in the courtyards of high-rise apartment buildings. Some bodies remain on the streets.

Background:

• Ukrainian intelligence and Western intelligence agencies expect an intensified offensive by Russian occupation forces in Donbas. Military administration officials are calling on all residents to evacuate as soon as possible.
• The Luhansk Military Administration said on 11 April that they were gathering reserve ambulances and stockpiling fuel.
• The largest cities of the Luhansk region are being subjected to devastating artillery shelling and air attacks by the Russian occupiers.