Autopsies on war fatalities began in Bucha’s mortuary

Lyudmyla Bochok, 79, was shot in the head and back on March 5th, according to her death certificate.

Relatively close to Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and now synonymous with heinous war crimes perpetrated by Russia during its invasion, Bucha is where her body was recovered.

An official death certificate obtained by AFP shows that Bochok’s 74-year-old mentally disabled sister Nina died of heart failure in the kitchen.

After the Russians murdered her sister, her nephew Yevgen Pasternak believes she died of shock, loneliness, or starvation.

Pasternak eventually located his Aunt “Lyuda” in the back of a white truck on Monday, two weeks after searching body bags and inspecting the remains of dozens of old people in vain.

Nevertheless, he hasn’t been able to track down Nina thus yet.

As the Russians marched on Bucha, some 4,000 civilians were stranded.

The Russians subsequently retreated again on March 31, according to local police head Vitaly Lobas. AFP reports that four hundred remains were found. A fifth of them have yet to be recognised.

“The majority died violent deaths” and were shot, Lobas claims, but he refuses to disclose a specific number.

An unidentified Ukrainian volunteer says, pointing to a grey body bag next to a trailer where 12 other bodies wait for room in Bucha’s modest morgue, “Number 365, is that one yours?”

Lyudmyla and Nina’s 44-year-old nephew Pasternak confirms that it is his.

The volunteer, impatient to go on, asks, “And the other one, is it yours?”

In response to Pasternak, who has been coming to this location in search of his aunts for weeks, I learn that they own the property.

During Russia’s month-long siege of Bucha, the remains of Bucha people who died or were slain began being collected on April 3.

Those autopsies began five days later, in Bila Tserkva, in the primary morgue of the region, with 18 French police experts who’d been sent in to help out.

The findings of the coroner’s office will be used in both local and international war crimes investigations.

A modest community morgue has a parking lot full with corpse bags that come on carts, lorries, and other non-refrigerated vehicles.

The corpse bags are left on the floor after being emptied, sometimes for many hours, according to AFP.

As Nadia Somalenko waits for her husband’s death certificate, she is unfazed by the stench of decaying bodies and stray canines who are drawn to the area by the scent of decaying flesh.

According to her, the Russians must have carried him out of the house since they discovered the potatoes and onions he was peeling there when he was killed by a “bullet to the head”

Nadia eventually receives Mykola’s death certificate after a long morning of waiting. A gunshot to the head is listed as the cause of death.

She says that Somalenko had refused to leave Bucha and join his wife in Kyiv, despite the fighting. Nadia claims that he was unfazed by the Russians.

Lyudmyla is fed up with waiting and wants to go on with her life. When a lorry enters the car park at Bucha’s morgue, the small woman opens the door herself.

And despite the overwhelming stench, she frenziedly searches among the body bags for number 163.

“It’s our son! Let me have a look! Let’s check if he’s here! “She cries out for help.

Lyudmyla tries to open the cover, and her husband tries to stop her. The old man opens the zip a little, but attempts to shoo his wife away with his hand.

Her FFP2 mask murmurs “My son, my tiny baby… There is our blanket, that is our earring, that is his sweater.”

The body is raised and placed on a stained stretcher.

She breaks into a sprint through the parking lot as if her son were injured and could be brought to the hospital for treatment.

She recounts how her son Artyom had first brought his wife and daughters to safety in the western city of Lviv, but then planned to return to the village of Myrotske, near Bucha, in early March to try to rescue his parents.

Nobody ever did find out what happened to him when he failed to show up.

He was found dead in a marsh some 650 feet away from their home on April 6, after his corpse had deteriorated for more than a week. Bullet wounds were listed on his death certificate, which was obtained by AFP.

Sergiy Kaplichny, head of the funeral parlour next to the morgue, moves from one coffin to another, sporting a flashy orange sweater.

The funerals are free and include a choice of colour for the coffin, a cross with a temporary plaque, a traditional plastic garland of flowers and the presence of a priest.

Interments take place in Bucha’s cemetery Number Two, located on the edge of a forest of fir trees.

– Never-ending cycle – The bodies of three Bucha residents, executed for no apparent reason by Russian soldiers, wait to be laid to rest.

In a red coffin to the left lies Lyudmyla, assassinated on her doorstep. In the middle rests Mykola, taken away during a meal.

On the right in a black coffin is Mykhailo Kovalenko, 62, a father who was killed by a Russian sniper as he tried to escape, according to his grieving son-in-law.

A blue Lada makes its way up the cemetery path and parks by the graves, briefly interrupting the priest’s prayers. Two volunteers clutching spades get out.

Four more coffins have arrived: graves must quickly be dug for them and filled up by nightfall.

It is an unending cycle of death that will inexorably start all over again the next day.

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