BOSNIA- HERZEGOVINA: Mass grave found near Srebrenica memorial centre

A mass grave containing dozens of Srebrenica massacre victims has been discovered near the Memorial Centre in Potocari where thousands of Muslims are expected on July 11 to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the massacre. Forensic experts started to exhume bodies of Srebrenica massacre victims on Friday (July 6) from a newly found mass grave located on a hill overseeing the Memorial Centre in Potocari. The grave is a secondary one, meaning that the bodies discovered were relocated from the graves where they were initially buried in order to conceal the crime. "In the area of Glogova and Kravice more than a thousand Bosnian Muslims were executed," said Murat Hurtic, the regional chief of the Commission for Missing Persons. "A day or two after their execution they were buried at various places in the area of Glogova, more specifically in the place called Ravnica. In Ravnica we found a mass grave containing more than 200 incomplete bodies. Bodies from other mass graves from Glogova were removed in September and October 1995 and numerous secondary mass graves were created in the area of Srebrenica," he added. There are more than thirty bodies visible at the top layer of the mass grave. Some skeletons are complete and others are only partial because they had been damaged in the process of their removal from the primary mass grave. More than 440 recently identified bodies will be buried on July 11 at cemetery in Potocari following the ceremony which will mark the 12th anniversary of the massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslims men and boys were killed by Serb forces in 1995. Some 2,500 victims have been laid to rest in Potocari. "If we add to that number the bodies waiting for identification in Tuzla, we have so far exhumed half of those killed in Srebrenica," Hurtic said.

ITN Source | July 9, 2007

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