American Volunteer at Bucha Morgue -1

war story

Bucha, Ukraine - Apr 13, 2024

American Volunteer at Bucha Morgue -1

This is about

Darrell Patrick Loveless

By Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group

Bucha, Ukraine,
Apr 13, 2024

aiCHAPTER 1

aiI am Darrell Patrick Loveless from Arkansas, USA. Last year I was here in Bucha in April, right after the Russians left the city. I worked in the morgue with the Ukrainian police and the criminal investigation department of the French Gendarmerie and saw with my own eyes the atrocities committed by the Russians. It was tough.

aiMy job was to pick up unidentified bodies from trucks as they arrived. We carried them to a tent where French and Ukrainian doctors performed autopsies.

aiI saw with my own eyes the damage caused by the Russian soldiers who occupied the city, and the variety of ways they killed and tortured people — traces of ropes on bound hands, gunshot and shrapnel wounds. The Russians laid many mines everywhere: in children’s parks, churches, on the streets where people walked, all places they could harm someone.

As a US veteran I've seen victims of war, everything happening in war. But this was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

aiThe bodies of hundreds of people ended up in the morgue. It was grueling. There were families there.
ai
aiMany people could not be identified: they had been outdoors for so long that no one could recognize them. The French team brought their DNA specialists. They took samples from people to find out who they were. We received about 14 bodies per day, plus 200-300 bodies that were already stored in refrigerator trucks.

aiPeople were killed and buried in their gardens. We saw these burial places. I spoke with several family members. Liudmyla’s husband was shot dead by a Russian sniper simply for going into the street. It was terrible. It was probably the most challenging thing I have ever had to do.

aiAs a US veteran I've seen victims of war, its consequences, and everything happening in war. But this was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Such a huge number of people were killed. It was murder.

ai—text version: Emilya Prytkina
ai— video recording: Andrii Didenko, video editing: Denys Volokha, captions: Tanya Karliychuk and Mariia Krykunenko