「戦争犯罪」捜査で町長らの遺体掘り出し　ウクライナ・ホストーメリ

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナの首都キーウ近郊のホストーメリで１２日、ロシアによる「戦争犯罪」に関する捜査が始まる中、仮埋葬されていたユーリー・プリリプコ町長の遺体が検視のために掘り出された。（写真はウクライナ・キーウ近郊のホストーメリで、ユーリー・プリリプコ町長の遺体が掘り出され、抱き合って嘆く親族）
　町によると、プリリプコ氏はロシア軍が町に侵攻した後の３月７日、食料や医薬品を配布していた際に撃たれて死亡した。
　ペトロ・パブレンコ司祭は、プリリプコ氏は「素晴らしい愛国者で素晴らしい男だった」「愛されていた」と語った。
　プリリプコ町長の遺体を手押し車で運び、仮埋葬を執り行ったのもパブレンコ司祭だった。教会と町役場の間に仮の墓地が設けられていた。
　ＡＦＰはこの日、町長の他、仮埋葬されていたホストーメリ住民の遺体が掘り出され、収容されたのを確認した。
　作業員は幅広のロープを使い、町長の遺体を土の中からつり上げた。警察は頭部の傷などをビデオ撮影した。
　町長の知人ら約３０人が神妙に作業を見守る中、妻のワレンチナさんはむせび泣いた。遺体はくしゃくしゃの黒い収納袋に入れられ、車に積み込まれた。
　首都キーウを目指したロシア軍は、ホストーメリで撃退されたが、ウクライナ側の代償も大きかった。
　掘り出しに立ち会った州検察のアンドリー・トカチ氏は「町当局の集計では最大４００人が行方不明になっている」と話した。
　「戦時検察官」と書かれたベストを着用したトカチ氏は、「予備的な情報によると、彼（町長）は運転手と共に、理由もなく撃たれたようだ」と語った。
　町長をはじめとするホストーメリで収容された遺体は、近くの村ブチャに運ばれ、検視と正式な葬儀が行われるまで冷蔵トラックの中で保管される。
　冷蔵トラックの中にはすでに３０～４０に上る遺体袋が並んでおり、さらに２台の冷蔵車が待機している。
　トラックに遺体を運び入れたイーホル・カルピシェンさん（４６）は「こんなことはこれまでにしたことがない。ただ、わたしたちの人々が殺されたのであり、われわれは全ての人たちを適切な方法で埋葬しなければならない」と話した。
　カルピシェンさんは「この感情を表す言葉を持ち合わせていない」と述べた後、「安らかに」と言いながら、冷蔵トラックの扉を閉めた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/04/14-09:33）

The funeral of the Gostomel mayor plays out in reverse. His body is pulled out from the ground, the crowd of mourners disperses, then a priest hugs his weeping wife and says a few kind words.
Yuriy Prylypko was a great patriot, a great man, says Father Petro Pavlenko. He was loved.
Prylypko was killed on March 7, after Russian forces rolled into the Kyiv commuter town he managed. The municipal council said he was shot dead while handing out bread to the hungry and medicine to the sick.
Pavlenko collected his buckled corpse in a wheelbarrow and oversaw a burial in a shallow grave between the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin and a pistachio green local government building.
On Tuesday, AFP saw the grave exhumed as Ukrainian war crime investigators opened a probe.
Workers hauled the mayor from the earth using a wide yellow cord. Police videotaped his wounds, including a bloody head injury.
His wife Valentyna wept as a group of around 30 mourners looked solemnly on. Then the body was sealed in a crumpled black body bag and placed in a van.
- 'Shot without any reason' -
Gostomel -- a town on the cusp of Kyiv -- is where Russia's northern offensive was turned back by Ukraine.
After President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on February 24, troops stationed in Belarus swiftly occupied the area. However, they were hammered by air strikes and could advance no further.
Since Russia called off its assault on the capital to regroup for a push in the east, Ukrainian authorities have retaken control and started to pick through the wreckage.
The town of Bucha -- one short bridge south of Gostomel -- has been the focus of international attention after AFP discovered the bodies of 20 people strewn along one single street.
Ukraine says Russian forces executed civilians, while the Kremlin denounced photos of the scene as fakery.
However Gostomel, the site of a bitter battle over an airfield coveted by Russian commanders, also witnessed its own share of suffering.
The town council has counted the number of missing at up to 400, said regional prosecutor Andriy Tkach.
We are figuring out who was shot. Perhaps not all the bodies are found.
The mayor is among those whose fate is known.
According to the preliminary information, he was shot without any reason, together with his driver, says Tkach, observing the exhumation wearing a vest printed with the title war times prosecutor.
- A second funeral -
In Gostomel on Tuesday the final moments of other citizens were also being pieced together.
AFP saw the body of Oleksandr Karpenko pulled from a garden grave as his mother Lyudmyla paced the path in a frenzy of grief.
Lyudmyla, her head wrapped in a black shawl, fell to the ground as it departed in a van. Father Pavlenko comforted her as it left, mumbling words of consolation.
The bodies of Gostomel are taken to a refrigerated lorry trailer in nearby Bucha where they are stored awaiting autopsy and formal funeral rites.
It is cooled to 5.7 degrees Celsius (42 degrees Fahrenheit) and marked with a stamp reading approved for transport of perishable foodstuffs.
There are perhaps 30 or 40 body bags inside already, and two more trailers on standby for those still to come.
I have never done this before, but our citizens are murdered and we must bury every person in the right way, said Igor Karpishen after loading a batch of the bodies.
I don't have any words to express these feelings.
Welcome to peace, the 46-year-old says with a hint of hope as he slams the lorry door shut, closing the unhappiest chapter in the history of his home.