Representatives of the Lugansk People’s Republic inter-ministerial working group on the search for burial sites of Ukrainian aggression victims, their identification and perpetuation of their memory, retrieved remains of 267 victims from graves in the Lugansk People’s Republic, head of the working group, LPR First Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka said.
“Remains of 267 people have been exhumed since August,” Soroka said at the round-table meeting in Lugansk on Tuesday attended by the LPR and DPR heads, Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin. “Initial examination of the bodies and their clothing showed that they were civilians who died as a result of Ukrainian aggression in the summer and autumn of 2014.”
The largest mass graves were found in Pervomaisk, where 80 bodies were exhumed, and in the Vidnoye neighborhood in Lugansk, were remains of 140 people were retrieved. The work is ongoing, Soroka said.
Relative of the victims and missing persons contributed 134 blood samples for making DNA passports, she added.
In August, LPR and DPR representatives signed an agreement in Lugansk on cooperation and information exchange in the search for victims of Ukrainian aggression and identification of their remains. The first exhumation of Ukrainian aggression victims in the Lugansk People’s Republic was carried out in the village of Sabovka, Slavyanoserbsk district, on August 11.
LPR authorities urged to report individual or mass graves or missing relatives (in zones of fighting since 2014 to date) using the working group’s hotline +38 (72) 216 80 30 or email to wg-img-lpr@ya.ru. *i*t
