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The 9th archaeological investigation campaign in the Lipovan Cemetery in the village of Periprava in southeastern Tulcea has ended, eight graves of political prisoners who died in the former penitentiary colony have been identified, according to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Wednesday.
The Association of Former Political Detainees in Romania (AFDPR), together with the Department of Military Prosecutors within the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the National History Museum of Transylvania (MNIT) and the Doina Cornea Foundation from Cluj, organized, in collaboration with the National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union, the Museum of History and Natural Sciences Aiud, the Turda History Museum and the Vaslui County History Museum "Stefan cel Mare", the 9th campaign of archaeological investigations in the Lipovans Cemetery in Periprava.
"In the recently concluded campaign, three excavation units or archaeological sections were executed, their total surface being 54.50 square meters. In these sections, 11 graves were identified, 10 of which were investigated, one of which will be completely uncovered in the next campaign. Eight of the investigated graves, due to the burial characteristics, belong to some prisoners, and two are more recent, being left untouched on the spot. Regarding the graves of the prisoners, six were buried in individual graves, and one was made in a common grave and contained the skeletons of two people. From the eight graves of prisoners, only six skeletons were extracted, two being partially caught in the section, which led to the prosecutor's decision to leave them in situ to be fully recovered in the next campaign,'' the quoted source specifies.
In the nine campaigns carried out so far in Periprava, 25 sections or archaeological surfaces were executed, within which 83 graves were discovered, of which 82 were investigated.
According to the quoted source, 74 graves belong to prisoners, and eight belong to people who died in the last decades, mostly locals, who committed suicide or were found drowned in the Danube and were buried, without surface marks, in the inmates' necropolis. The remains of 70 inmates were recovered, to which are added the two skeletons that will be exhumed next year.
In the case of two graves, the skeletons were not found. For the skeletons recovered during this campaign, the legal procedure was followed, specific to the norms of forensic investigation on the spot. The bones of the deceased, after being analyzed, photographed and described, were dismantled and extracted in the presence of a forensic doctor, being packed and transported to the Forensic Medicine Service of the Tulcea County Hospital.
After carrying out the medico-legal and anthropological expertise, they are transferred for genetic analysis to the Mina Minovici National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bucharest.
This approach follows the identification of the dead by method of comparing DNA obtained from the skeletal remains with that taken from the living descendants of the victims," AFDPR says.
AGERPRES
