Almost 90% of victims in Bucha were killed by bullets rather than shrapnel, mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk said in an interview to DW. He said the number of bodies is growing with every day because «they are being found on private properties, in parks and squares, where it was possible to bury them while the shelling stopped.
Fedoruk also said the number of civilians killed was 320 as of yesterday evening. According to him, several mass grave sites have already been discovered in Bucha: these are located on the Ukragrosnab site, on Vokzalna and Yablunska streets and in children's camp Promenisty. Bodies with tied hands and bullet wounds were found in these places.
Also, according to the mayor, 112 private homes in Bucha were razed to the ground, about a hundred more were damaged; 18 apartment blocks were strongly damaged and burnt out.
According to Fedoruk, 67,000 thousand people lived in Bucha and its suburbs before the war. Currently, 3,700 people remain in the city.
On April 2, the Russian military began their retreat from Bucha in the Kiev region. It was one of the cities where the fiercest battles were fought. When Bucha was liberated, journalists saw a terrifying scene: the streets were strewn with the bodies of dead civilians, including women and elderly people, some with their hands tied behind their backs and some dead from shots to the back of their heads. The Insider spoke to residents of Bucha, and they described how the Russian military shot random passersby, looted homes, and prevented residents from leaving.
Oleksiy Arestovich, advisor to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said in a video message that the world should be horrified by what had happened in the cities of Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel in the Kiev region.
«Bucha, Irpen and Gostomel are the cities that have been liberated which look like shots from a post-apocalyptic horror movie. Russian soldiers perpetrated war crimes: raped and burned women, killed representatives of local self-government, murdered children, elderly people, and men,» he said. Many of those killed had their hands tied and showed signs of torture, most of them having been killed by shots to the back of their heads.