russia killed hundreds of people: the occupiers hide the number of dead in the Kherson Oblast blast due to Kakhovskaya HPP - Associated Press
Kyiv • UNN
An AP investigation found that the russians had underestimated the number of flood victims in Kherson, probably by hundreds. The occupiers buried the victims in mass graves and controlled the issuance of death certificates.
russians are concealing the number of victims of the June floods in Kherson region caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station by russian troops. According to an investigation by journalists of the Associated Press , hundreds of people died, UNN reports.
Details
The publication found out that the occupation authorities of the Kherson region deliberately underestimated the number of deaths during the flood that swept large areas of the occupied left bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region.
Speaking to journalists, witnesses explained that the occupiers controlled the issuance of death certificates, and the bodies of the dead, which were not claimed by the family, were removed.
According to russia, 59 people drowned during the floods on the territory it controls. However, AP journalists concluded that only in occupied Oleshky, where approximately 16,000 people lived at the time of the flood, the number of victims is estimated to be at least hundreds.
Not only russia, but even Ukraine does not realize the scale of this tragedy. This is a huge tragedy
The newspaper emphasizes that Ukraine will probably never be able to establish the exact number of victims. Even after the de-occupation of the region and all investigative actions are carried out, it will be an extremely difficult task to find the bodies of all the victims.
The journalists managed to talk to three doctors and a volunteer who worked on the accounting of the dead in the Kherson region. Some of the bodies were buried in group graves, but unidentified bodies were taken by the russians and taken to an unknown location.
Locals said that they had a closed Telegram chat with 3,000 residents of Oleshky, people wrote about bodies lying on the streets, then the occupiers collected them and took them to an unknown destination.
Nurses who agreed to speak to journalists on condition of anonymity said that in Oleshky, the occupiers banned from issuing death certificates from the flood. They were ordered to write off the deaths for other reasons.
Witnesses say that in the first three days of the flood, when the occupation authorities simply fled Oleshky, people buried the dead on their own.
Later, when the occupiers returned, they ordered that flood victims be sent for autopsies to other institutions in the Kherson region, in Kalanchak, Skadovsk and Henichesk. There, doctors approved by the occupation authorities were responsible for issuing certificates after forensic examinations.
Thus, full control over the death toll passed into the hands of the occupiers.
Addendum
It is noted that against the backdrop of mass graves, the occupiers were frightened and began to import vaccines against hepatitis A, dysentery and typhoid fever. The russians feared that an epidemic would begin in the region due to the large number of deaths.
Locals say that the first bodies were buried in the city center (near the church) because 90% of the city was under water. They were not recorded by the hospital, neither autopsy nor time of death.
The bodies were collected, sprinkled with chlorine, and buried in a mass grave to prevent them from decomposing on the streets.
According to medical estimates, a total of 200 to 300 people drowned in Oleshky. Most of them were elderly people who were physically unable to leave their homes or climb to the roof. However, most of the witnesses interviewed by journalists say that there were much more mass graves.
Some doctors who worked in the occupied territory and maintained contact with the Ukrainian authorities tried to keep records of the dead and even handed over flood death certificates to Svitlana Serdyukova.
She managed one of the medical institutions in exile and remotely kept records of the registry in government-controlled Ukraine.
However, after the occupiers took control of the issuance of death certificates and began to take care of all the bodies of the dead on their own, the record became impossible for Ukraine.
Recall
On June 6, 2023, at about 3:00 a.m., the russian military blew up the Kakhovka Dam in Kherson region. Ukrhydroenergo noted that the hydroelectric power plant was completely destroyed and cannot be restored.
Up to 80 settlements are under threat of flooding. Currently, the water level in the Dnipro River has returned to its natural course after the dam was blown up.