In Izyum, eastern Ukraine, where 450 bodies were found in a mass grave, France provided a DNA testing laboratory to help families find their missing relatives without going through on-the-spot identification tests, according to AFP. .

About 50 people showed up on Friday to participate in the DNA campaign, which took place in the parking lot of a commercial building, AFP reported.

“I am looking for my father, Anatoly Matysko. According to neighbors, he was killed on March 10 and buried in his garden. He was exhumed and taken to the morgue in Kharkiv, but another body was found in the same garden,” Inna Kupriyanova told AFP.

“So I came to give a DNA sample to make sure my father was identified and to give him a proper burial,” she said.

People who have a genetic link to their missing or possibly exhumed relative spend a few minutes in a small white mobile truck to take a saliva sample, while others take a personal item, ideally a loved one’s toothbrush.

This “LAB’ADN” is a device developed by the Institute of Forensic Research of the French Gendarmerie (IRCGN) that allows rapid genetic analysis of large numbers of biological samples.

This first laboratory was handed over in July by France, which is to hand over the second laboratory to Ukraine by the end of the year, said Etienne de Ponsin, the French ambassador to Ukraine.

In mid-September, several hundred graves and a mass grave were discovered in a forest on the outskirts of Izyum, a town that was under Russian occupation for almost six months before being recaptured by Ukrainian forces.

After the exhumation, 450 bodies were sent to the Kharkiv morgue for identification, a spokesman for the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office told AFP on Friday.