Identification of bodies completed after Russian attack on Hroza village

Investigators have completed the identification of the bodies of those killed by the Russian missile strike on the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast.

Source: the National Police website

Details: The total death toll did not change after the identification of the bodies. Russia's Iskander-M missile killed 59 civilians. Five victims with injuries are in the hospital. Their condition is stable.

As of 17 October, 49 bodies were taken by the families and acquaintances of the deceased. 

According to Oleksandr Kobyliev, Deputy Head of the Department for investigating crimes committed during armed conflict of the investigative department of the General Directorate of the National Police in Kharkiv Oblast, investigators and criminologists have been working around the clock since 5 October to establish all the circumstances of the incident.

Quote Kobyliev: "Today, investigators work in the morgue, where they hand out fragments and bodies, which were not identified at the initial stage of the investigation. They have now been identified and we can transfer them to their families for burial."

Background: 

• On 5 October, the Russians attacked a cafe in the village of Hroza, Kupiansk district, Kharkiv Oblast, as a wake for a fallen soldier was taking place there.
• Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the strike was so precise that it is suspected that the attack was guided by a local resident.
• As of 6 October, 52 people were reported dead. Among the dead are the widow and son of the soldier for whom the wake was being held after his reburial in his home village. 
• Russian forces may have struck the Hroza cafe thinking that Ukrainian soldiers were there, but those present were all civilians, the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office noted.
• Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian Federation’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said at a meeting of the Security Council on Monday, 9 October that the funeral of a "high-ranking Ukrainian nationalist" was being held in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast when the Russian missile strike that killed 52 people was launched.

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