A gruesome mass grave of murdered women and children has been unearthed at a former Nazi concentration camp in Russia.
The remains of some 500 victims have been found, many showing gunshot wounds and evidence of torture.
Other inmates are believed to have died from malnutrition and disease.
Some 64 state investigators and search volunteers are currently working at the macabre and long-suspected site, part of a sinister hell camp system called Dulag-191 in Voronezh region.
Harrowing video footage shows diggers unearthing skulls and body parts in an area occupied by Hitler’s forces during the Second World War.
“The estimated death toll is about 500 people,” said Mikhail Segodin, head of the Don search volunteer squad, referring to this specific mass burial.
(Image: NTV)
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“The main contingent of the camp was made up of women and children”
Archives suggest that overall some 8,500 people perished at Dulag-191, he said.
The current search for human remains concentrates on 15 pits – mass graves each containing between 30 and 100 remains in the vicinity of Lushnikovo village, Ostrogozhsky district.
“Judging by the remains unearthed so far we see shot wounds, blunt traumas, in other words, broken bones,” said Mr Segodin.
“The site is complicated because it was a camp for women and children.”
The human remains are in a poor state, he said.
(Image: Mikhail Segodin)
(Image: don-poisk.com)
Mr Segodin added: “Mostly tubular bones have survived, but often only teeth remain from the skulls.
“The only thing that can be said for sure is that almost all of the people who died here were young.
“We did not find any valuable things, except perhaps a cigarette case damaged by gun fire.”
A Soviet intelligence report dated 2 September 1942 from the Office of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs for Voronezh region stated that “a concentration camp for women and children is located at a brick factory in the suburban village of Lushnikovka”.
The camp was described as being “in the open air, fenced with four rows of barbed wire” and it was “guarded by Magyars” [Hungarians].
(Image: Mikhail Segodin)
The report alleged: “Prisoners are not fed, but children are allowed to gather alms, parcels are also allowed.
“There are many ill people there, medical aid is not provided.
“There is a high mortality rate.”
Intelligence documents also suggested the murder of children and cruelty against prisoners of war.
Local historian Viktor Strelkin talked to eyewitnesses and surviving prisoners.
“I was told that in these pits, right under the feet of people who were still alive, lay the dead.
(Image: NTV)
“Sometimes they lay openly, or they were covered with 10 or 15 centimetres of soil, but it sagged and the corpses were visible again.”
Segodin said: “Search and identification work will continue together with specialists from the (Russian) Investigative Committee.”
The concentration camp system Dulag-191 was created in the Voronezh region in 1942.
Inmates from Dulag-191 were forced to construct a railway for the Nazis known as the Berlinka line, built to supply German forces seeking to take Stalingrad.
The burial was found thanks to unclassified secret service documents, and aerial photographs made by a German pilot in 1942.
This established the exact location of the women and children’s camp