OSTRÓWKI, Ukraine: A Volhynia victims’ burial was held Sunday for 55 Poles, including 26 children, exhumed from World War II-era graves in western Ukraine’s Volyn region.
The ceremony began at noon local time, marking 83 years since the killings of residents of Ostrówki and Wola Ostrowiecka on August 30, 1943.
Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance said teams recovered the remains between July 13 and August 7 from three burial sites.
Investigators found 48 people at a former farm in Wola Ostrowiecka, six near the former Ostrówki school and one woman in a separate grave.
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The remains were placed in a collective grave at the Polish cemetery in Ostrówki, where victims found during earlier exhumations in 1992, 2011 and 2015 are also buried.
Polish Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska, former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and IPN deputy president Karol Polejowski attended. Ukrainian Deputy Culture Minister Ivan Verbytskyi also represented Kyiv at the ceremony.
The killings remain a sensitive issue between Warsaw and Kyiv. Poland recognises the wartime massacres carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) as genocide.
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Ukrainians also point to attacks and reprisals involving armed groups on both sides that killed Polish and Ukrainian civilians.
The latest exhumations form part of renewed Polish-Ukrainian cooperation on locating and identifying victims. The IPN said historians believe the remains of about 300 victims from the two villages have yet to be found.
