Some 300 people had to be buried “in mass graves” in Bucha, the mayor of this city northwest of kyiv, which has just been retaken by Ukrainian forces after weeks of shelling and fierce fighting with Russian troops, said on Saturday.
“In Bucha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” as it was impossible to do so in cemeteries, still exposed to Russian bombardment, the mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, said in a telephone interview with AFP.
AFP saw at least 20 bodies dressed in civilian clothes scattered on a street in Bucha on Saturday. One of them had his hands tied.
“All of these people were shot in the back of the head,” Fedoruk said.
According to the mayor, the victims are men and women. He also said he saw a 14-year-old boy among the dead.
Many of the bodies had white bandages “to show that they were unarmed,” he added.
In the city there were still cars on the streets with “whole dead families: children, women, grandmothers, men,” he said.
The corpses were still in the streets because the soldiers had not passed through there yet, he said.
“These are the consequences of the Russian occupation, of the actions” of the enemy, he continued.
Ukrainian forces were only able to fully penetrate Bucha a day or two ago. The city was inaccessible for almost a month.
