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Surrounded, Mariupol residents buried the dead in mass graves. Photo/Washington Post
With the death toll leaving morgues overcapacity and more bodies being collected away from homes, city officials decided they couldn’t wait to carry out individual funerals.
Quoted from APWednesday (9/3/2022), a hole about 25 meters deep was dug in an old cemetery in the heart of the city filled with bodies collected by city social service workers from morgues and private homes.
Some are brought wrapped in carpets or plastic bags. Forty mayang came Tuesday, and today another 30. They include civilian victims of city shootings and soldiers, as well as civilians who died from disease or natural causes.
Other city workers also carried bodies so that the number buried quickly increased and the total in the long cemetery is now unclear.
Workers quickly made the sign of the cross after pushing the bodies into public graves. No other family members or mourners were present to say goodbye.
Also read: Mariupol is surrounded without water and electricity, 6-year-old boy dies of dehydration
The work is done efficiently, and without further ado, as a result of the ever-present danger. Missiles landed on the graveyard itself on Tuesday, disrupting burials and damaging walls.
The city of Mariupol plans to close the cemetery on Thursday, if the bombing stops long enough to allow workers to do so.
At the graveyard gate, a woman asked if her mother was among those buried. He said he had left his body three days earlier outside the morgue, with a paper tag bearing his name attached. Her mother is buried there, workers told the woman, who declined to give her name.
Also read: Humanitarian corridor functions, Ukrainians evacuated from besieged city of Sumy
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