‘I’m used to walking among corpses’ How Mariupol residents search for their dead under Russian occupation

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1. >The siege of Mariupol lasted 85 days. No one knows how many lives were lost, but some estimates place the number at up to 100,000. It will take years, if not decades, before the real toll is known. In the midst of constant air raids, missile strikes, and crossfire, Mariupol residents buried the dead wherever they could, often in the courtyards of residential buildings. When the risk of leaving basements and shelters was too great, bodies were left on the street where they fell. After the Russian military occupied Mariupol, they began to dig up the graves and pull bodies from the wreckage. Some, they simply disposed of with the rubble. Others were photographed and put into a database. Survivors are still trying to find the bodies of their loved ones in any way they can. But in a sea of mutilated corpses and unfeeling bureaucracy, it can seem a nearly impossible task.