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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Isobel Koshiw and Lorenzo Tondo in Izium

‘We don’t know where the rest of the bodies went’: the search for answers in Izium

Men in plastic suits and spades digging into grave.
Ukrainian officials said they had found 445 graves so far in the forest in the Kharkiv region. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

The men digging in the dusty ground looked visibly sickened by the gruesome task they had been dealt. The rotted bodies were mangled and the smell poisoned the fresh forest air. One corpse had a rope around the neck.

Those on a break mostly stood with their spades and goggles, looking on at their colleagues from the state rescue services who were red in the face from the hard labour of tugging the bodies out of the graves and sweating from their blue plastic overalls.

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