After her turn.
She pauses in the middle of the room.
Hand over her mouth.
Like she’s stifling a sob.
Her sister and nephew were killed.
In an ‘orcs’ airstrike.
On their block of flats.
In early March.
They’d been sheltering.
In the basement.
Where they thought.
They’d be safe.
She managed to identify her nephew.
By a tattoo on his arm.
But she has never found her sister.
“She was torn apart in the blast.”
“I can’t even find a piece of her.”
She says softly.
“I’m waiting to find even.
A little piece of my sister.”
“So I can bury them both together.”
But the war that created her nightmare.
Is also making the identification process.
Painfully slow.
Izyum police station was destroyed.
So officers have set up an incident room.
At an art college where they collect.
DNA samples.
They call people in one by one.
And gently swab the inside of their cheeks.
The samples are then sent to.
A forensics laboratory.
To extract a DNA profile.
In the hope of.
Finding a genetic match.
With a body at the morgue.
The unidentified remains of some of.
Those killed in Izyum are.
Being kept in a container.
In Kharkiv.
So far, only five bodies from Izyum.
Have been identified using DNA.
The forensics teams admit some are.
So badly damaged they may never be named.
She says a neighbour recently buried.
Seven family members.
Killed in the same attack.
As her nephew and sister.
“He told me that the morning.
After their funerals.
It was like a great weight had been lifted.
And he was finally able to sleep again.”
“I just want to get through that moment.
Then maybe it will be.
Easier for them.
Or for me.”
A couple of hours’ drive east in Izyum.
The destruction.
From ‘orcs’ invasion.
Is staggering.
A high-rise block of flats has.
A giant hole blown through.
The middle and all around.
Detached houses have been flattened.
A man up a cherry-picker is.
Repainting a bright mural on.
To a fire-blackened building.
But there are big Zs.
Daubed on a row of.
Garages nearby the tag of.
‘Orcs’ soldiers.
During their seven-month-long occupation.
Living amongst all this are.
The families searching for relatives.
They know were killed but.
Who still have no body to bury.
“He told me that the morning.
After their funerals.
It was like a great weight had been lifted.
And he was finally able to sleep again.”
“I just want to get through that moment.
Then maybe it will be.
Easier for them.
Or for me.”
*Because I read “Ukraine war: How pathologists identify victims of Russia’s invasion” by Sarah Rainsford on 19 Dec 2022, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem as a story of Tetyana, her sister Iryna and nephew Yevheniy.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
Ukraine war: How pathologists identify victims of Russia’s invasion – BBC News
**My friend shows you this poem and other my poems together also on the Ukrainian website for their children and others!
Please join them!
