Izyum

Description

Maksym Palenko

The mass graves near the city of Izyum were found on September 15, 2022, after the liberation of most of the Kharkiv region from Russian troops. During the exhumation, 447 bodies were found: 414 bodies of civilians (194 men, 215 women, 5 children), 22 military personnel, 11 bodies whose gender has not been determined; most of these people died a violent death, 30 bodies have obvious signs of torture (bodies were found with a rope around their neck, with their hands tied, with broken limbs and gunshot wounds, several men had their genitals amputated).

Graves were located among trees and marked with wooden crosses. Crosses were numbered; many graves were nameless. Local resident Vitaly Borovy was the only one to work in the ritual service during the occupation. He buried the people, collecting bodies around the city. After the de-occupation of Izyum he helped the police to dig up the graves and to establish the names of the dead. So, in grave number 319 was found the body of Ukrainian children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko.

The coat of arms of Izyum are grapes, which the artist depicted next to the cross also directing to the biblical parallels. The inscription on the cross says «unidentified».