BIROBIDZHAN, December 6. /TASS/. Russian nurses Galina Mikhailova and Nadezhda Durachenko from the military hospital in Birobidzhan, will be buried in their hometown on December 8-9 with military honors, a hospital spokesman told TASS on Tuesday.
"The head of the hospital has departed for Moscow today to collect the bodies," the spokesman said.
A special medical unit of Russia’s defense ministry arrived in Syria with special equipment to provide medical assistance to the residents of the areas cleared of terrorists. The two nurses from Birobidzhan were killed during the terrorists’ shelling of a Russian makeshift hospital near Aleppo on Monday.
The sources in the hospital said that they were young women under 40 and had children at home.
First Sergeant Nadezhda Durachenko and Junior Sergeant Galina Mikhailova arrived in Syria in late November, two more nurses from the Birobidzhan hospital are still on duty there. Earlier in 2016, these medical workers from Birobidzhan had already gone on a three-month tour of duty to Syria.
Russia’s Defense Minister General Sergei Shoigu has requested all the necessary assistance to be provided to the families of the departed, the ministry’s press service said.
Nadezhda and Galina are not the first residents of Birobidzhan to die in Syria. On July 22, 2014, contract soldier Nikita Shevchenko was killed while on a combat mission in the Aleppo area.