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A Ukrainian man who went missing in Winnipeg this winter was found dead this weekend, searchers say.
Anatolii Ishchenko’s remains were found in the Red River around St. Boniface, Oksana Burchak, who helped organize search parties looking for the 30-year-old earlier this month, said Sunday.
Ishchenko was last seen on Jan. 22 on Pembina Highway, between Markham Road and Bison Drive, police previously said.
Dennis Mashevsky, Ishchenko’s cousin, flew in from California to help the searchers. Mashevsky said his cousin was a shy man, but that he was likeable and always left a good impression.
“He was a family-oriented individual,” Mashevsky said Sunday. “He worked hard. He had two jobs here.… He did what he could to survive this.”
Burchak — who said she’s representing Ishchenko’s immediate family, all of whom still live in Ukraine — said she got a call from the medical examiner’s office confirming the body’s identity on Sunday.
She’d previously said the 30-year-old had been seeking treatment for panic attacks at the Victoria Hospital the day he’d last been seen.
The 30-year-old went to the University of Manitoba later that day, where he tried to charge his phone, Burchak said Sunday.
Mashevsky said Ukrainians that have been displaced because of the war have been dealt a difficult hand, and that his cousin was given “a heavy load to bear.”
“Just being welcomed by the Ukrainian community here has been touching in a way that’s very difficult to explain,” he said.
“We’re lucky we got closure and we wish the same for other missing people. It does take the community.”
Police said they had no updates to provide Sunday.