Ukraine police exhume bodies of three civilians

Borodianka: A Ukrainian forensics team on Thursday exhumed the bodies of three civilians, believed to have been shot dead in a town outside Kyiv that was held by Russian forces.

Forensics experts carried three black plastic bags containing the bodies recovered from a common grave at a cemetery in Borodianka, northwest of the capital, AFP reporters saw.

They opened the bags to make an initial examination of the decomposing bodies, searching through their clothes mixed with dirt.

One of the victims was a "50-year-old resident of the neighbourhood who was killed in a car," Kyiv region police chief Andriy Nebytov told reporters at the cemetery, adding that the identity of the other two is being established.

The body bags were placed in a forensics van and taken away for further analysis at a lab in Kyiv.

"According to a preliminary examination, we believe that these are gunshot wounds. The cause of death will be specified by an expert," Nebytov said.

The bodies were buried when the town was still occupied by Russian forces by a resident who then left to a "safer place", he added.

The police chief said that a local resident who left the area during the fighting had returned and informed the national police of the burial place.

Nebytov said that the bodies of 1,373 civilians, including the three in Borodianka, have been found in the Kyiv region since the Russian army retreated following an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Ukraine capital.

More than half of them died from gunshot wounds and some 300 from shelling, he said.

Western sources estimate that around 30,000 to 40,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion on February 24 last year.

According to UN figures released last month, at least 8,000 civilians have died and nearly 13,300 have been injured in Ukraine.

But these are only cases verified by the UN, which believes the real toll is likely to be much higher.