Mass mortuaries, forensics and rare co-operation with Russia: The agonising task of identifying Ukraine’s war dead

Ukrainians in forensics suits unloading thousands of bodies of their fallen countrymen from refrigerated vehicles makes for a depressing spectacle.

But in the three and a half year long war between Russia and Ukraine, the repatriation of the dead might be one of the rare, all-too-brief moments of co-operation between the two warring countries.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, has a caseload of 154,200 people missing from both sides of the frontline as of August, whose fate or whereabouts remain unknown, It is expected it will take decades for families to receive answers about their loved ones.

According to the ICRC there have been over 50 incidents of mass repatriation throughout the conflict to date. On average, the group receives 1,000 bodies a month, with workers given the grim task of trying to identify them so their families can finally be given peace.

A deal brokered in Istanbul between the two warring sides during the summer – one of the few positive outcomes of the US-organised peace talks to date – saw Moscow return significantly more – some 6,000. This repatriation, which took place in June, was so large that they had to receive the bodies by trains.

Niamh Smith, a forensic specialist working in Ukraine for the ICRC, said the exchanges of fallen soldiers are usually silent, respectful affairs.

“Nobody is standing around chit chatting,” says Ms Smith, who is usually in the truck during the transfer. “It’s almost like a ballet in that everybody is so well tuned and well versed in their role.

“It goes very smoothly and that could not happen without the full cooperation of both sides,” she says. “It’s a very human experience. Nobody can deal with that and not come away feeling… affected.”

In Odessa, where Ms Smith is based, the ICRC helped to assist in developing a field mortuary after they ran out of storage for bodies. Train carriages have been adapted and refrigerated in order to accommodate the large number of bodies they’re receiving.

Each body received by a mortuary is assigned a unique 17-digit reference number encoding the date of arrival and the institution that took them.

The bodies are then examined by teams made up of forensic specialists and police investigators, who take notes and photographs, looking out for any marks, scars or tattoos, Ms Smith explained.

Clothing is removed, logged and photographed as part of the process before sampling is done for DNA testing and the bodies are stored awaiting comparison and identification.

Every single instant of identification has its own timeline, with some taking months. The database of family samples plays a vital role in the process as it offers a point of comparison.

Under the Geneva Convention, both sides are obliged to search for and recover the remains of the fallen on the battlefield and mark places where they might have been kept or buried. But when it comes to returning human remains, this comes down to requests that both sides must agree to.

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