Behind an apartment building in Kostyantynivka, hand-written wooden signs mark two fresh graves.
A local man explained that his mother was killed by the blast wave of an explosion from a Russian attack last week. The second grave, he said, was for an old man who died of natural causes.
The makeshift burial sites show the desperation in Kostyantynivka, a city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where constant attacks have driven most of the population to flee for safety.
Some of the victims have been buried in cemeteries, like a civilian who was killed in an overnight strike on the district of Novoselivka.
But space in graveyards is limited, and few people remain to do the work of transporting or burying the dead.
Some residents who remain here have had to bury their own relatives in courtyards or gardens.
Yevhen Tkachov, the head of the Proliska Humanitarian Mission, was among the volunteers helping civilians evacuate while they can. He pointed out several body bags in the yard of a building.
“This is the body of a neighbor who died in the strike,” Tkachov said. “You can see what’s happening here — people die wherever they are.” The bodies would remain there, he said, until there was enough free manpower to bury them.
Russian forces have been slowly advancing toward Kostyantynivka over the past month, trying to encircle the city north of Donetsk.
That’s made evacuation efforts increasingly dangerous for humanitarian workers and the residents who remain.
“The conditions are getting worse — too many destroyed roads. Drones are flying, artillery is firing,” Tkachov said.
But after years of war in Ukraine, he added, “We’re used to it.”
