MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission investigating the site of mass graves 35 kilometers away from the city of Donetsk in Ukraine found signs indicating that at least several civilians were butchered in late August, according to a SMM report published Wednesday.
"The SMM… saw in the coal mine two areas located fifty meters apart, each containing two human bodies. All four corpses were in the process of decomposition... Near the road on the edge of the village, the SMM observed a pile of earth resembling a grave which had a stick with a plaque," the report said.
The OSCE monitoring mission said the plaque bore names or initials of five people and indicated that the individuals died on 27.08.2014. Monitors said they also found "eight 9mm Makarov pistol cartridges" some five meters away from the bodies.
Donetsk militia earlier alerted the OSCE to the presence of three mass graves containing multiple bodies of massacred civilians, killed execution style. The graves were found on the territory of a coal mine Komunar near the village Nyzhnia Krynka north-east of Donetsk, with another one inside the village.
Reports say four bodies have been recovered so far, including three identified as women. The SMM said in its report it "cannot provide a forensic assessment of the sites."
The Russian Foreign Ministry has suggested that pro-Kiev National Guard volunteers might have been involved in the massacre, and said it hoped the UN, the OSCE and the European Council would provide a just and unbiased assessment of the mass killings of civilians in eastern Ukraine.
