‘We don’t know where his body is. We don’t know. Nobody knows’
Family of Irishman killed f ighting in Ukraine tell how his death impacted on their lives on second anniversary of Russian invasion
THE family of an Irishman killed fighting in Ukraine have spoken of the devastating impact his death has had on their lives as hopes fade of ever recovering his remains.
Finbar Cafferkey, from Achill Island in Co. Mayo, was killed while fighting Russian forces in Bakhmut last April.
In their family’s first interview since Finbar’s death, his heartbroken sister Orla said: ‘There’s a person missing. We are not complete.
‘We don’t know where he is, where his body is. We don’t know – nobody knows.’
Ms Cafferkey, 39, and her family; sister Méadhbh, 45, brothers Éamon, 43, and Colm, 42, and her
‘There’s a person missing. We are not complete’
parents Tom, 70, and Celine Lavelle 72, tell how their lives were turned upside down after they learned Finbar had been killed in action in a new documentary which airs on TG4 this week.
Mr Cafferkey died in a Russian mortar strike along with two other foreign fighters, former US marine veteran Cooper Andrews, 26, from Ohio, and Russian anarchist Dmitriy Petrov.
Mr Cafferkey and Mr Petrov had previously fought with the YPG, a left-wing Kurdish militia who fought the Islamic State in northern Syria.
As part of the documentary, investigative journalist Kevin Magee travelled to war-torn Ukraine in an attempt to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Cafferkey, who was killed while trying to secure a crucial supply
line in the battle for Bakhmut on April 19 last.
The film also examines the reasons behind his decision to enlist in a fighting unit in Ukraine and the impact his death has had on his family.
His sister Orla said she was in her bedroom in New York when the news came through of her brother’s death.
‘I couldn’t believe it. A few hours later I flew back home, I felt that I
had to get home to Achill with my family,’ she recalls.
Finbar’s other sister, Méadhbh, said the family were shocked because they didn’t even know he was fighting on the frontlines.
She told the documentary: ‘A few days later I was speaking to his comrades, and they said that they [his unit] went out and they didn’t come back. They said there was intense heavy shelling, and it was unbelievable for us because
we didn’t even know that he was fighting on the frontline.
‘After that, we found out that he had done military training maybe six weeks before. Even now it’s
hard to believe... It’s silly but there’s a small hope still that he’ll just walk into the kitchen. But I know that that won’t happen.’
It was previously reported that Mr Cafferky’s remains had been recovered from the battlefield and were awaiting a positive identification, but following inquiries made in the TG4 programme, Mr Cafferkey has now been officially re-classified as ‘missing-in-action’.
A Ukrainian soldier who was
‘They went out and they didn’t come back’
wounded fighting at the frontline near Bakhmut and is currently being treated for his injuries in Lviv detailed the difficulties in recovering the bodies of fallen soldiers from the battlefield where Mr Cafferkey was killed.
Andrii, who declined to give his surname for security reasons, said: ‘It’s almost impossible to do that, and we even had cases where we had a so-called agreement between Russian troops and our allocation team was entering to pick up the bodies, and they were immediately shot. Only in some rare cases where the commanders of units from both sides have an agreement is it possible to recover bodies, but in general it’s very, very, very difficult.’
Andrii, 39, who served with a special forces unit on the Ukrainian front line near Bakhmut, said the area where Mr Cafferkey fell in battle is now controlled by Russian forces.
‘The situation in the Bakhmut region is always quite difficult because the enemy is much better equipped with heavy weapons, drones, artillery and number of troops, so it’s pretty tough fighting there. When you fight there it’s non-stop strikes and shelling,’ he added.
The Ukrainian ambassador to Ireland, Laryso Gerasko, dismissed earlier reports that Mr Cafferkey’s body has been recovered and was awaiting identification in a morgue.
‘His body hasn’t been identified yet, and he’s missing in action. Unfortunately, I don’t have any, more information except that,’ she said.
‘We are on to our authorities to find his body and to identify him but that is without success unfortunately. It’s our duty to find not only the bodies of foreigners, but Ukrainians as well, but it’s very difficult in such a brutal war.’
To compound the Cafferkey family’s suffering, shortly after news of Finbar’s death broke, the Russian Ambassador to Ireland, Yuri Filatov, claimed that the Irishman was a victim of Irish Government ‘propaganda’.
But in a statement to the Irish Mail on Sunday at the time,
Finbar’s brother Colin denied the claims, and said Finbar ‘stood against all forms of imperialism, be it US, British, or Russian’, and was strongly opposed to Ireland’s support of US troops and any moves toward joining NATO.
Speaking in the documentary, Colin recalls the moment he heard
Finbar was missing in action. He says: ‘He [a former associate of Finbar’s] asked me if I was on my own, and he told me that he had bad news, that Finbar was missing in action. I thought, “Well, Finbar is always missing in action.” He goes off and then he’s gone for a while.
‘I didn’t understand how serious that phrase was in military terms, but he told me that this was serious and that he wanted to come down to tell the news to the family.’
Finbar’s mother Celine added: ‘I heard in Méadhbh’s house that the news wasn’t good. It wasn’t so bad at that time; it was said that he was “missing”. But the next Wednesday they said that he was lost, gone.”
His father Tom said his son had ‘been in the thick of a few battles and he had got out of them… but this time it didn’t have a good ending’.
Kevin Magee said he made the programme to try and find out what happened to Mr Cafferkey and ‘to understand why someone would voluntarily exchange the idyllic tranquillity of Achill Island on the west of Ireland for the horror of a foreign war thousands of miles from home’.
He told the MoS: ‘I went to Ukraine to speak to some of the last people to see Finbar alive and get an insight into why he decided to go from delivering aid to risking his life on the frontline to fight against Vladimir Putin’s army. Sadly, he fell on his first engagement with Russia forces.’
‘It’s very difficult in such a brutal war’
Caillte san Úcráin (Lost in Ukraine) airs on TG4 at 9.30pm on Wednesday.