BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: More than 600 bodies located in Kamenica mass grave in Bosnia

As final work takes place on exhumations at a mass grave in the Bosnian village of Kamenica, more than 600 bodies of the Srebrenica massacre are located. Forensic experts have finished work on Thursday (November 22) on the biggest mass grave discovered this year in Bosnia. After a month of work the experts exhumed from a grave in the eastern Bosnian village of Kamenica the remains of 616 complete and incomplete bodies of Muslims killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered after the Srebrenica enclave protected by the United Nations peacekeepers fell in hands of the Bosnian Serbs army led by General Ratko Mladic. "We have found a large amount of evidence in this mass grave; many cartridges, blindfolds and binding strips, which tells us a lot about how these people were executed," said said Ismet Music, an official of the Regional Commission for Missing Persons. "We found a number of documents and personal belongings as well. By checking in our database the names from readable documents, we know for sure that bodies found in this mass grave belong to people who fled Srebrenica in 1995 and tried to reach Tuzla," he added. The experts said the mass grave hid 76 complete and 540 incomplete bodies that were transferred from the original site of burial in order to cover the crime. Some complete bodies found at the bottom of the 2 metre deep grave were well preserved, because of underground waters in the area and air condensation inside the grave. This was the ninth mass grave found in the valley near the eastern town of Zvornik. "People who live here named this valley the 'Valley of Death' because we've found so far, in such a small area, nine mass graves. And according to information we have there are more of them in this area," Music said. Twelve years after the Srebrenica massacre, indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic still remains at large.

ITN Source | November 24, 2007

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