Belarus’s Interior Ministry press service reported the detention of two 16-year-old teenagers. Officers from the Grom special unit of the internal troops were involved in the operation.
The college students are suspected of vandalism. According to the ministry, a resident of the Khoiniki District contacted police, reporting that graves at a local cemetery had been desecrated.
Investigators eventually identified the two teenagers.
“On Radunitsa, the vandals stole food from gravestones and drank alcohol left in glasses on graves by relatives of the deceased. Then, while intoxicated, they began to vandalise burial sites: pouring paint over monuments, tearing out fences and crosses, breaking decorative elements and dismantling plaques,” the Interior Ministry said.
More than 50 graves were damaged. A criminal case has been opened on charges of hooliganism.
The ministry’s video shows excerpts of the teenagers’ statements. One is asked what condition he was in at the time of the offence, to which he replies that he was in a state of “slight intoxication”. The second is asked who came up with the idea to go to the cemetery, and he replies that “both of us — first him, then me, because we’re friends and all that”.
