Bodies identification finished: Russians killed 59 people in attack on Hroza

Law enforcement officers have identified all 59 people killed in the Russian attack on the village of Hroza on 5 October.

Source: Ihor Klymenko, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, on Telegram; Mariana Reva, Spokeswoman of the National Police of Ukraine, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.

Quote from Klymenko: "Police forensics identified all those killed in the missile attack on a café in Kharkiv Oblast. A total of 59 people were killed by the Russians by a direct hit from an Iskander [missile system] in the village of Hroza. All the victims are local residents. Seniors, doctors, farmers, teachers, businessmen. All are civilians. Whole families in several generations died".

Details: Klymenko said that 19 people were identified using mobile DNA laboratories. To do this, police forensics took samples from relatives around the clock, drew up profiles and looked for matching fragments for six days.

Klymenko specified that one of the dead, a 60-year-old man, was identified by forensic experts by 20 separate body parts.

Two more people were identified using personal items recovered from the victims' homes, as they had no direct relatives to compare DNA profiles with.

Mariana Reva, Spokeswoman of the National Police of Ukraine, said that 59 people died from the strike on Hroza, and not 56, as previously reported by the regional authorities. Reva reports that five more injured people are in hospital.

Read also: Hroza's Agony: Stories of people killed by the Russian missile in a village in Kharkiv region

Background:

• On 5 October, the Russians attacked a cafe in the village of Hroza, Kupiansk district, Kharkiv Oblast, as a wake for a fallen soldier was taking place there.
• Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the strike was so precise that it is suspected that the attack was guided by a local resident.
• As of 6 October, 52 people were reported dead. Among the dead are thewidow and son of the soldier for whom the wake was being held after his reburial in his home village. 
• Russian forces may have struck the Hroza cafe thinking that Ukrainian soldiers were there, but those present were all civilians, the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office noted.
• Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian Federation’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said at a meeting of the Security Council that the funeral of a "high-ranking Ukrainian nationalist" was being held in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast.

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