Mass graves in the heart of Ukraine’s Mariupol: Ukrainian official on civilian burials

He shared the information on Espreso TV.

"At present, all deceased city residents have essentially been buried. However, thousands of people were discarded without exhumation as debris during the demolition of destroyed buildings. Many graves still remain in the city, particularly in private sectors, where people buried neighbors and relatives in their yards. The Russians are not conducting search operations or exhumations. If individuals report finding such graves, the occupiers may conduct exhumations, but not always, and the process takes a long time," noted Petro Andriushchenko.

According to him, people returning to occupied territories try to locate the burial sites of their relatives and acquaintances to reinter them. Russia has records of unidentified bodies and those buried with documents.

"The situation there is chaotic. The Russians have complicated the search for buried people by splitting the burial database into three parts, which are stored in three towns: Mariupol, Manhush, and Novoazovsk. Therefore, people searching for the graves of their loved ones are forced to travel between these towns, where morgues hold unidentified bodies. These are horrifying scenes, a form of torment for people trying to determine where their relatives and loved ones are buried," commented the head of the Center for the Study of Occupation.

Andriushchenko added that in newly occupied territories, the number of fatalities is much lower, but the situation remains the same as in Mariupol.

• In October 2024, it was reported that Russian builders, while working in a park in the temporarily occupied Mariupol, discovered another mass grave.