Cabinet of Ministers urged to allocate one million hryvnias for exhumation of victims of Volyn tragedy
The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Anton Drobovych, appealed to the government to allocate 1 million hryvnias for the implementation of a separate program of search works related to the exhumation of the victims of the Volyn tragedy. He announced this during the broadcast of the “Edyny Novyni” telethon.
Drobovych noted that search works are planned to be carried out on the basis of appeals from Polish citizens, which have already been sent to the Institute of National Remembrance.
“An individual citizen of Poland applied, she has a family history, she described this history in detail, unfortunately, there was no geolocation and official data… If she provides more information, we have already planned certain works for 2025.”Drobovych noted.
According to him, separate funding will be allocated for such planned works.
At the same time, the last official appeal from the Polish side regarding the exhumations came back in 2019 from the then head of the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland, Yaroslav Sharek. For years, working groups and interdepartmental commissions on this issue could not start their work, so Polish citizens, perhaps out of desperation, turn directly to Ukrainian institutions, even despite the existence of international mechanisms for solving such issues.
In addition, Drobovych emphasized that Poland still has not restored the tables with the names of Ukrainian victims in memorials destroyed by acts of vandalism, which violates the bilateral agreement of 1994. This agreement provides for the obligation to restore such places and to inform the Ukrainian side about it.
“Therefore, until Poland officially fulfills its obligations from 1994, only the force majeure mechanism can operate, when Polish citizens [appeal] directly. This is also an exception. Some elementary Christian, human values must work.”Drobovych stressed.
The Volyn tragedy, which occurred in 1943, was a period of brutal ethnic cleansing between the Polish Home Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 Poles and about 40,000 Ukrainians. Witnesses of these events note extreme brutality on both sides.
