“Murderers” and “torturers”. This is how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described this Friday, September 16 after the discovery of hundreds of bodies summarily buried near Izium, in an area recently taken over from Russian forces and where “torture rooms” were also found.
“Russia leaves only death and suffering. Murderers. Torturers. Deprived of everything human,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram, promising a “terribly just punishment.” The Ukrainian president went to Izioum on Wednesday, in this border region of Russia in the northeast of the country, after the departure of Russian troops, driven out thanks to a counter-offensive launched in early September on several fronts.
- Nearly 450 graves discovered
The Ukrainian president spoke of “more than 400 bodies” found at this mass burial site near Izium, “with traces of torture, children, those who died from missile strikes, fighters of the forces Ukrainian armies”.
On the spot, Ukrainian investigators began this Friday to exhume bodies in a forest near Izioum, where 443 graves were discovered, including a grave containing the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers, according to Oleg Kotenko, government official for the search for missing persons.
These tombs are surmounted by crosses bearing numbers and, for some, names and dates. The dates, in all likelihood that of the death of those buried, range from the beginning of March, when the city was still under Ukrainian control, to the beginning of September, according to AFP journalists and according to Oleg Kotenko. Some graves could contain several bodies. “The graves that do not bear names are those of people (found) in the street,” said Oleg Kotenko, according to whom “there are many people who died of hunger”. “This part of the city was isolated, without supplies. People were blocked, nothing worked”.
Most of the crosses without names are in raw wood, those bearing the names are in varnished or painted wood and are sometimes decorated with flowers. On one of the graves, a small glass was placed in tribute to the deceased and presumably identified by the family.
The Ukrainian police chief, Igor Klymenko, announced to him the discovery of ten “torture rooms” in localities taken back from the Russians in the Kharkiv region, including six in Izium and two in the town of Balakliïa.
- A discovery made thanks to a video posted on social networks
According to Igor Kotenko, this discovery was made thanks to a video posted on social networks and viewed by AFP. A man wearing a cap with a Russian flag says: “We must take the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the morgue and bury them because Ukraine does not want them”.
“Negotiations with the Ukrainian authorities didn’t work out, they refused to take the bodies, so we buried them ourselves in the city cemetery,” the man in the video says. Another video shows bodies of soldiers, wrapped in body bags and taken from the morgue.
- At least one body with tied hands exhumed
At least one body with its hands tied with a rope was exhumed this Friday near the town of Izioum, noted an AFP journalist. It was impossible to establish immediately whether it was a civilian or a soldier, the body being very damaged.
- The UN wants to send a team on the spot
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations wants to send a team “soon” to Izioum to verify the allegations of the Ukrainian authorities evoking the discovery of hundreds of graves and executions.
“Our colleagues in Ukraine, from the human rights monitoring mission, are verifying these allegations and they aim to organize a visit to Izium to determine the circumstances of the death of these people” found in this city, indicated Elizabeth Throssell , spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner, during the regular UN briefing in Geneva. “They will follow up and hopefully arrange a visit to Izioum soon,” she added.
- Blinken accuses Russia of ‘appalling’ acts in Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday accused Russia of acting in an “appalling” manner, citing possible war crimes.
Russia is acting in an “appalling way and it is seen and repeated every time the Russian tide withdraws from parts of territories it occupied in Ukraine. You see what it leaves in its wake”, said the head of American diplomacy to journalists. “And this latest discovery of apparently more than 440 graves at Izioum reminds us of that,” he said. Antony Blinken called on the Ukrainian authorities to document these atrocities, stressing that in “many cases these will be war crimes”. Same condemnation from the EU, which says it is “deeply shocked” by this macabre discovery. “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has left a trail of blood and destruction. (…) Russia, its political leaders and all those involved in the continued violations of international law and humanitarian law international community in Ukraine will have to be held to account,” said the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell.