Almost 90% were shot dead: the number of bodies found in Bucha is growing every day

The bodies of the executed residents on the roads, mass graves with tortured people, destroyed infrastructure. This is how the long-suffering Bucha looks today after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk told DW journalists about how local authorities were trying to revive the city.

According to the mayor, for the fourth day experts have been cleaning up Bucha from saboteurs. Sappers are working. Utilities are working to restore critical infrastructure. On the agenda is the supply of electricity, gas and water.

Delivery of products, medicines, hygiene products, animal feed has already been established. Location centers for cooking have been created.

Anatoliy Fedoruk said that 50 thousand citizens lived in Bucha. In the community, which includes the surrounding villages, there are 67 thousand people.

As of today, there are 3,700 citizens in the city, but the number of people is slowly growing. In other settlements of the community, the number decreased by 30%.

– Yesterday I was in Vozdvyzhenka, this is the most remote area, so out of 1,780 citizens, 760 remained under occupation there. Six civilians were shot by Russian occupiers, – the mayor says.

He notes that in the north of the Kyiv region, those who fell under occupation on the first or second day, in fact, could not leave their homes.

As for the number of dead residents of Bucha, as of March 6, there are 320 of them. Relevant specialists, forensic experts, law enforcement officers are now working with the corpses, but the number of bodies found is growing every day.

Killed and tortured people are found in private estates, parks, squares. Where there was an opportunity, when there was no shelling, the bodies were buried.

– People tried to bury the dead so that the dogs would not take them away. Now every day we find new bodies in the villages of the community in the appropriate temporary burial places, – the mayor explains.

According to him, almost 90% are bullet wounds, not shrapnel. So far, three mass grave sites have been discovered throughout Bucha: the territory of the Ukragrosnab enterprise, Vokzalna and Yabluneva streets, and a children’s camp where shot people with their hands tied were found.

The mayor of Bucha notes that international and Ukrainian authorities are involved in the process of identifying the dead.

According to the mayor, 112 private houses were destroyed to the ground and cannot be restored, about a hundred more were damaged. 18 apartment buildings were damaged with heavy artillery and burned. Two of them cannot be restored, since they are panel ones. Experts should say more about this.

We would like to recall that in Bucha and its region is a curfew until April 7. What decisions will be made after that, is unknown. Local residents are not yet recommended to return to the city, since it is still not well suited for a more or less normal life.

Source: DW

Photo: Maximilian Ilchenko