Interior Minister: Some 59 people killed from missile strike in Hroza, all dead been identified
The number of victims of a missile attack on a cafe in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv region was 59 people, 19 were identified using mobile laboratories, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko said.
"Police criminologists have identified all those killed as a result of a missile attack on a cafe in Kharkiv region. Some 59 people were killed by the Russians with a direct hit from Iskander in the village of Hroza," the minister said in his Telegram channel on Thursday.
According to him, all the victims are local residents. "Pensioners, doctors, farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs. All of them were civilians. Entire families of several generations died," Klymenko said.
He said 19 people were identified using mobile DNA laboratories.
"For six days, police forensic scientists took samples from relatives around the clock, created profiles and looked for a match between the fragments," the head of the department said.
Klymenko said one of the dead, a 60-year-old man, was identified by forensic scientists using 20 body parts. Two more were identified using personal belongings seized from the victims' homes because they had no direct relatives to compare DNA profiles with.
"Investigators and criminologists of Kharkiv police have carried out colossal and unprecedented work, including due to modern mobile DNA laboratories. Without them, the process of identifying so many bodies and fragments would have taken about a year," the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.