The family of a British military volunteer missing in Ukraine have paid tribute to him as they revealed that police investigating his disappearance had discovered a body.
Daniel Burke’s mother, Diane, said that Ukrainian detectives were trying to confirm whether a decomposed corpse found in Zaporizhzhia in south-east Ukraine was that of her son, who vanished from his flat in the city five weeks ago.
Efforts were being made to check whether the corpse had Mr Burke’s distinctive tattoos, including insignias from his time serving with a Kurdish anti-Isis militia in Syria. “They are going to do DNA tests, and we will wait for the results,” she told The Telegraph. “It is heartbreaking.”
Mr Burke, from Manchester, was last seen on Friday, Aug 11, when CCTV showed him driving out of Zaporizhzhia in his pick-up truck with a fellow volunteer, Australian Nourine “Adam” Abdelfetah.
Police are now understood to be investigating the case as a murder. According to unconfirmed reports on online military chat groups in Ukraine, another foreign military volunteer has confessed to shooting Mr Burke during a military practice drill but claims it was done accidentally.
Mr Burke was a well-known figure among the foreign volunteers serving in Ukraine, some of whom he mentored. Originally from Manchester, he served with the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan before leaving the Armed Forces to work as a builder. In the wake of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, he took up arms again with Kurdish anti-Islamic State forces before being among the first wave of British military volunteers to head to Ukraine.
His family said that while they had always feared for his safety in foreign warzones, they respected his choice to take the risks.
“Daniel just wanted to help people,” said his mother. “He has been in warzones from 2007 onwards, and when he was home, he was just a joy to be around. I had to respect it – for him, life would have been pointless doing a 9-5 job.”
His brother Chris added: “He’d have preferred to go the way he’s gone now, rather than working on a building site all his life and dying at the age of 80. It breaks my heart to say it, but he could never have done things any other way.”
The family said their grief had been made worse by a lack of communication from the authorities. His mother said she reported her son’s case to Greater Manchester Police when he first went missing but had been told there was little they could do. It was not until Friday night that they finally visited her in person and told her she would get a “family liaison” officer.
“I have had nobody official guiding us through anything. We get no help from the Foreign Office – they don’t really know anything because the Ukrainian police don’t seem to liaise with either them or our own police.”
Detective Superintendent Lewis Hughes, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “My team and I are working with the Ukrainian authorities to make formal identification with a view to repatriating Daniel following that process.”
To add to the mystery, she said that a social media account linked to Daniel’s phone was continuing to show online activity. “It was active online last Monday evening, and when I send messages on it I get a green tick, which means the messages have been accepted.”
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