Snezhnoye, Aug 19 - DAN. Experts of the inter-departmental Commission for the search for missing persons and burial sites in Donbass conflict zones launched the work to exhume war victims remains in the Ovsyanoye cemetery in Snezhnoye. Supposedly, 50 people were buried there.
Mass graves of this size have not been previously reported. It contains the remains of both civilians and servicemen. The inter-departmental commission learnt about the location of the grave from local residents.
The five people currently exhuming the remains are members of the Department for Social Support of Retired Servicemen and Patriotic Education under the DPR Head. DPR ombudswoman, Commission head Darya Morozova is present at the scene. The effort also involves forensic experts, prosecutors and Snezhny administration officials.
The exhumation will be carried out on the step-by-step basis. Ten bodies will be retrieved in the first two days. They will be taken to the DPR Heath Ministry’s Forensic Bureau for DNA tests and the samples then will be compared with genetic data of residents whose relatives went missing in this area.
The mass grave appeared in Ovsyanoye during hostilities in the summer of 2014.
The Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic set up their inter-departmental working groups on the search for burial sites of Ukrainian aggression victims, their identification and perpetration of their memory on July 20 and August 6, respectively. The DPR’s Commission is led by ombudswoman Darya Morozova. The Commission is responsible for organizing the search for the missing persons, composing a register of the missing, gathering information on them, creating a database of the missing and deceased and their relatives, coordinating exhumation efforts, carrying out identification of bodies and handing them over to relatives.*jk