According to official numbers, as of July 2017, 836 bodies from the war zone in Eastern Ukraine could not yet be identified. This is the number named by the head of the health commission of Verkhovna Rada, Olha Bohomolets. Behind each of these bodies stands the story of a loss and a family that can’t find calm because they don’t know what has happened to the one they lost. The experience of four years of armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine shows that not in every case the identification procedure leads to reliable results
“My son had artificial front teeth. This man, however, had no wisdom teeth and no more molar teeth. My son was just 25. He had all these teeth…” says Viktoriya Yaremchuk.
Viktoriya’s son Aleksandr disappeared in August 2014 in the area of Saur-Mohyla. Viktoriya submitted her DNA sample to support the search for her son’s body. There were two matches with two different bodies that were found at different times and in places far from one another. But Viktoriya had only one disappeared son… Also on one of the militant’s websites Aleksandr’s documents were published with the comment that he had been killed.
Such cases of imprecision in the identification procedure are not rare. Families can be handed over the body of a stranger of even body parts of various people. Each of these cases also nourishes the hopes of those left behind that their family member could still be alive and sooner or later return home.
Searching for bodies on the territory not controlled by Ukrainian government was long the focus of a research group called “The Black Tulip”. They also dealt with the exhumation and transport of bodies since the beginning of the conflict. Now the project “Evacuation 200” deals with such issues. It is a project of the military-civilian liaison of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The problem is that they do not have access to all bodies. Where and how the researchers can look for bodies is determined by the authorities of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics”.
In the current situation, it is hard to illuminate all the events happening in the towns and villages on the territory outside the control of the Ukrainian government. Sometimes it is only after they are reconquered that an often shocking truth comes to light. To find the remains of soldiers is facilitated by the fact that mostly the positions of their military unit can be retraced. In the case of civilians, however, their disappearance often leaves more questions than answers.
For instance, after the retaking of Slavyansk by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, four bodies of preachers of a Pentecostal church were found in a mass grave. The militants arrested them, tortured them and subsequently shot them in a car. This story illustrates that each body holds the key to a story. If there is no access to the bodies, it becomes nearly impossible to find out the story.
Each application about a disappeared person to the National Police leads to the opening of a murder case (according to Article 115 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code) and an examination of the case, including a search for the body is initiated. (Ukrainian legislation about missing persons permits public or confidential investigation as well as measures of intelligence and counter-intelligence). Formally this is the only way the Ukrainian government can undertake searching for missing people.
Also after the registration of each unaccounted-for body, a criminal case is opened. In both cases the opening of a criminal case serves as the legal basis for conducting genetic expertise in order to identify the body (article 242 of the Criminal Processual Codex names the determination of the cause of death as the basis for the conduction of an expertise). Currently genetic tests are the principal method of identifications of deceased people. The DNA profile of the body can be compared to the DNA of related people. If there is a match, the body can be legally handed over to the family of the deceased. In addition, tests based on physical features can be undertaken.
But this ideal normative procedure is sometimes mixed up by human error. It’s the sheer quantity of unaccounted-for bodies and inconclusive investigations that make law enforcement sometimes overstep ethical boundaries when they deal with victims.
“Take one of these bodies as long as they hand them out. You will end up fighting over these remains” Yadviga Lozinskaya, the mother of deceased Andrey was told during the Ilovaysk operation.
The endless and ineffective identification procedures and the indecision of government agencies about who is accountable for what add to the pain of those waiting for a missing family member or mourning the death of a close one. For them, it is most important to learn the fate of the one they lost and to be able to find calm. Instead of sympathy they often have to deal with total ignorance of their suffering for years on end.
As is mentioned in the latest Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe about the “humanitarian consequences of the war in Ukraine” the belligerent parties have to assist families in the search for the bodies of their deceased. Unfortunately, the current legal procedures fail to live up to this promise.
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The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
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