Fraternal grave in Oleška. How the Russians hide the number of victims after the Kahovka hydroelectric power plant explosion

 

More than three weeks have passed since the Kahovska HPP explosion, but it is still not known what is happening on the occupied left bank of the Kherson region, how many people died and disappeared there.

On June 21, the occupying "force" announced 41 deaths in the entire Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region, and "medical services" - 121 injured. At the same time, the National Resistance Center reported that more than 500 people died in Oleska alone, according to preliminary data. Relatives have not yet managed to contact hundreds of local residents, their fate is unknown.

The Russians do not allow the entry of international missions into the occupied part of Kherson and try with all their might to hide the scale of the disaster - they do not give the bodies to relatives, bury the dead in mass graves and falsify the cause of death.

Liga.net tried to investigate exactly how Russians hide corpses and erase traces of their next crime.

 

CLOSED TOMBS

 

At least a week and a half after the Kahovska HPP explosion, the bodies of the dead were floating in green water directly on the flooded streets of occupied towns and villages. The occupation "rescue services" did not collect them and did not respond to local requests to remove the corpses. As far as possible, the dead were collected by volunteers and relatives of the drowned. But these were rather isolated cases.

The Russians only started taking away the corpses at the end of June.

"Some paramedics have appeared on the streets, I don't even know what to call them. They wear ordinary medical masks and rubber aprons, pack bodies in bags, load them into cars with trailers and take them in an unknown direction, all with the aim of hiding the number of victims ", says the founder of the Telegram group "Evacuation. Left Bank" Jaroslav Vasiljev.

On the day of the HPP explosion, he created this group, gathered around him volunteers who evacuated several thousand people from the left bank and delivered humanitarian aid there. His story allows us to reconstruct the general picture of what is happening in the occupied part of the Kherson region.

At first, the Russians took the dead to the morgue in Oleška. Then the chaos began.

"There is no clear scheme for handing over these bodies or any approved procedure," says Vasiljev. "I don't think even the Russians know what it depends on."

Jaroslav describes one such case. A few days after the HPP explosion, their group "Evacuation. Left Bank" received a request to evacuate elderly spouses from Oleška. The information was passed on to the boats that took the locals out, but the Russians did not let the boats reach the street where the house was located. When the boatmen arrived, it turned out that the man had died. Volunteers took his body to the morgue in Oleška.

"His daughter came from another city and went to the morgue to collect the body and bury her father," says Vasiliev.

More people came to the morgue in Oleška to collect the bodies of their relatives, the Russians made it clear that they would only be able to do so if they paid a bribe. They didn't pay so as not to set a precedent. No one knows what happened next to the bodies."

For those to whom the body was still handed over, there were problems with the documents, that is, with the data on the cause of death.

"As far as I know, some people issued certificates in which the cause of death was "heart attack" instead of "strangulation", - says local activist Elena (surname withheld for security reasons. - Liga.net).

 

"Sometimes they refused to issue any certificate," she continues. "There were cases when relatives were given a body in the morgue in Oleška, told to bury it, and the next day they came for confirmation. and it was said to them: “So you have already buried a relative. We cannot issue a certificate after the funeral." Moreover, it was not the Russians who did it, but the collaborators, and they took the collaborators from Kherson to the Oleshkov hospital."

A few days after the Russians started collecting the bodies, there was no more room in the morgue in Oleški. In addition, another problem arose - the city is still almost without electricity, and the only generator in the hospital has been moved to the intensive care unit.

According to local residents, the bodies that were in the morgue were buried by the occupiers at the city cemetery in Oleška in a common grave - simply wrapped in foil.

"The Russians said that before burial they take material from each body for DNA analysis, in order to identify the deceased, but I doubt they do that," says Elena.

Bodies found by relatives in flooded houses do not go through the morgue at all. It happens roughly like this: the water descended on the street, the man came to his house in Oleška and found his dead father there.

"A photo of the body is taken next to his open passport (if there is one), and then the person simply digs a hole in the yard or, at best, in the cemetery and buries the deceased," says Elena. "It's hot outside, there's no time to get documents, and there's no point, because you won't make it anyway. I know many cases in Holaja Pristan where people buried their loved ones in their own backyard."

 

BODIES ACCORDING TO THE REGULATIONS

 

Now the Russians continue to collect bodies in the streets of occupied settlements. The bodies are packed in bags, loaded into cars and taken to the morgues of Skadovsk, Henicheska and Kalanchak. According to Jaroslav Vasilijev, the dead were also buried in a mass grave in Kalanchak. Of course, without taking into account the conclusions about the cause of death.

"We tried to contact our people in Skadovsk and find out where the bodies were brought from and what they do with them," says Elena.

It cooperates with pro-Ukrainian citizens throughout the occupied left bank.

"We found out a little - only that the bodies were brought from Heničeska," says the activist.

"Those people survived the flood - all the photos show flooded houses and streets and, of course, the dead."

If the Russians somehow pick up the bodies on the streets, no one tries to enter the destroyed houses - and there are many of them.

"And the fact is that most of the bodies are most likely in the houses. Most of them could not climb onto the roofs during the flood and remained on the lower floors. There are a lot of destroyed houses in Oleska - our city looks almost like Bakhmut or Mariupol. For example, we have such a street - Školna. Now there is only one house in it. All the others have collapsed. And how many bodies are there in those houses that no one comes to pick up," says Elena.

The chairman of the regional military administration in Kherson, Aleksandar Prokudin, spoke publicly about it.

"The city of Oleška is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster, and the bodies of the dead remain under the ruins of houses."

Elena knows many stories of her neighbors and acquaintances who took care of relatives with difficulty moving and could not save them during the flood.

"An 80-year-old grandmother lives across the street from my house in Oleška. She has an immobile son. After the hydroelectric power plant explosion, his condition worsened, he was unconscious. When the water started to rise, the grandmother asked her friends to take her son to the attic. They picked him up, but died soon after. I don't know if his grandmother managed to bury him. This is just one case, and there are many! How many people with reduced mobility were in Oleska - at best, only doctors know," points out Elena.

 

LISTS OF THE DEAD AND MISSING

 

The Russians officially announced that 41 people died after the tragedy at the HPP in the entire occupied territory of the Kherson region. But on June 28, it became known that 60 more bodies were found in the occupied territories. However, according to the Center of National Resistance, more than 500 people died in Oleska alone. Volunteers try to keep lists of the dead, which contain the names of people who have been verified and proven to have died.

 

"We compile lists, but we only include those for which relatives have written to us that the person has definitely died. Every day I publish a post in the group asking people to write me facts about dead people. Unfortunately, not many people come forward. If a close relative has died, it's clear that people don't want to write to the group. So that there are only dozens of surnames on our lists now. I don't have direct evidence to say that there are actually hundreds of victims, but I'm sure that's the case," says Jaroslav.

In the first five days after the HPP explosion, Jaroslav talked to the locals for almost 24 hours about who was helping to evacuate from the left bank. Then dozens of people from different settlements between Oleška and Golaja Pristan told him every day what they saw with their own eyes - there were many bodies floating in the water. It was so shocking that some boatmen stopped going to "work" after one such day and refused to help with the evacuation any further.

"In addition to the lists of the dead, we also have lists of the missing, those who have not yet contacted their relatives and about whom nothing is known. Now there are about 400 such people. But it is difficult to update them, because for that the relatives have to write to us that the person has been found or that died. And that doesn't happen. Also, we constantly look at the lists of temporary accommodation capacities that the Russians arranged on the unflooded part of the left bank - they are published in groups on social networks. If we find the names of the missing from the list there, we cross them out," says Yaroslav.

There are also cases that do not belong to any list: it happened that Yaroslav's group received requests from relatives to evacuate several people at a certain address. They gave the boats addresses and either they couldn't get to the place or they arrived when there were no people.

"It is not known where they went. And until we verify the information that they have been found or died, we cannot include them in any lists," explains Jaroslav.

On June 19, Russia rejected the UN's request to allow a humanitarian mission in the flooded part of the left bank. This means that only after the de-occupation of the territory and the exhumation of the bodies will it be possible to estimate at least the approximate number of dead. According to Yaroslav, his group could make such an assessment - that the Russians do not interfere with the evacuation.

"We would organize everything clearly - we would place coordinators on the shores, take people by boat to one place and keep lists with the names of the evacuees. It was chaotic - we only had goals to save as many people as possible. In such conditions, lists were out of the question," emphasizes Jaroslav.