INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As Bucha emerges from the horror of the Russian occupation, townspeople are desperate to know the fate of loved ones
Some know how their story ends
Others still wait to find out, hoping against hope it will not end in tragedy.Tetiana Ustymenko knows the conclusion to her story
searching for two family members
He arrives on a windswept plain where 50 body bags are laid out on the ground.His relatives are burnt beyond recognition, he thinks, though
a wedding ring may prove a clue to end the mystery of their final moments.Oleksandr Kovtun still has hope
occupied by Russian forces in the early days of the invasion.The horrors left behind after their withdrawal last week are slowly being
uncovered.Garden burialThere is a black sash draped across one door on Kyiv-Myrotska Street
Out front a car riddled with gunfire has a pool of clotted blood in the passenger seat
There are three bodies in the back garden.Ustymenko, 65, says she put her son Serhii and his friends Nastia and Maksym here on March
I said, 'Son, son?', and a neighbor told me a car was shot in front of him
Nastia was shot in the legs
Serhii was shot in the back.They lay in the open for three days before Tetiana's husband Valerii washed and dressed the bodies and dug a
simple grave with the neighbors' help.It is at the bottom of the garden past daffodils
There is one mound in the sandy earth, but each body is marked by a sprig of conifer
"I put this here to say 'Forgive me son'," she said
"I want him to forgive me for arguing with him for nothing.""How can I live now?"Searching body bagsOnyshchenko arrives to inspect the
bodies of Bucha's war dead at the cemetery
There are around 50, some stacked on top of each other, others lie side by side on the ground in crumpled black body bags.A gaggle of police
officers is poring over paperwork, writing preliminary reports to identify the corpses.Every few minutes they unzip a new bag
In one, a woman's arms lie tangled across her lifeless face
In another, rigor mortis gives the impression of a man standing to attention.Some contain only body parts, scorched and severed.Onyshchenko,
In his pocket are photocopies of the ID card of his sister-in-law Tamila, and the birth certificate of her 14-year-old daughter Anna.They
left Bucha in a borrowed car but the owner later saw a video of it ablaze in the street.He has come to look for distinctive jewelry, to
identify what remains of the mother and daughter.A police officer tucks a handwritten note into one gaping body bag
"Bucha, man, approximately 30-years-old," it reads
Bodily injuries on the left side of the abdomen, on the neck and hands.""A month ago no-one could imagine something like this was possible,"
says Onyshchenko.Continuing hopeKovtun's 19-year-old son Oleksii is missing
"He went into the city and did not come back."The 58-year-old now clings to the hope he might have been taken by the Russians.Another young
man from their street is rumored to have been taken captive in Russia
Maybe this was the fate of his boy too."My son knew him," he says
"There's no other hope for us."On Saturday the bodies of 20 people dressed in civilian clothing were found strewn along a single Bucha
