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Mass Grave at Nova Kasaba
May Hold 2700 Srebrenica Victims
Satelite photographs that U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright presented to the United Nations helped pinpoint the site in a meadow near Nova Kasaba in Serb-controlled eastern Bosnia soon after besieged Srebrenica fell last July. She said up to 2,700 may be buried in scattered mass tombs in the rural Nova Kasaba area.
Reporters were shown six bodies dumped haphazardly in a "test trench." One corpse had a severely fractured skull and a gold wedding ring on a skeletal left hand. The hands of two bodies were tied behind their backs, one with wire and the other with string. All were clad in the remains of civilian clothing and all appeared to be adults, said John Gerns, forensic expert in the five-strong investigative team.
He said the contorted corpses would need further examination before the team could determine the exact cause of death. All retained parchment-like skin stretched over skeletal torsos swarming with flies. "There are additional bodies which we saw as we dug but you don't see now. We will return later to excavate the entire grave which we think is about seven metres long," Guerns said.
Reporters could smell the stench of putrifying human remains 50 metres (yards) from the pit before being allowed to approach after hours of digging by the investigators. No spent munitions were found next to the site in Wednesday's initial dig, but spent bullet casings littered the roadside about 60 metres away.
Guerns, one of two Americans in the team, along with a Frenchman, a Pakistani and a Briton, started excavating suspected mass tombs after several preliminary trips to pinpoint sites earlier this year. U.S. troops helping to enforce the Dayton peace treaty in Bosnia, protected the site with armoured combat vehicles and Humvee jeeps mounted with machine guns. Serb police cars passed repeatedly, sometimes slowing, but did not stop and there was no local interference with the dig.
The investigators are hunting for evidence to back war crimes tribunal prosecutions. The tribunal has indicted 58 people, the great majority of them Serbs, for atrocities against civilians in Bosnia's 43-month ethnic war. Survivors' testimonies indicate at least 3,000 mostly unarmed Muslims were killed as they fled Srebrenica when Serb forces overran the enclave. Investigators believe most were tossed into hastily dug pits.
A further 5,000 are missing and presumed dead. If confirmed, Srebrenica's mass killing would be the worst war atrocity in Europe since the Nazi Holocaust against Jews.
Drazen Erdemovic, a Croat serving in Bosnian Serb forces, pleaded guilty last week to taking part in the machine gun execution of around 1,200 Srebrenica detainees at Pilica.
Gerns' team excavated another mass grave in a mountain forest close to Cerska, not far from Nova Kasaba, a week ago. Earlier Wednesday, the Muslim-led Bosnian government said allied Bosnian Croat investigators had found 57 bodies in a mass grave near Jajce in cental Bosnia. He said these were mainly Muslim and some Croat victims of the Serbs' capture of Jajce in October 1992. Fifty two were civilians and five were soldiers. All three ethnic groups in Bosnia committed atrocities against civilians but investigators have linked nationalist Serbs to most of the cases. |
NOVA KASABA, Bosnia (Reuter) -- U.N. war crimes investigators in Bosnia unearthed a second mass grave on Wednesday, apparently of Muslims killed by Serb forces in the conquest of Srebrenica in mid-1995. Thousands of Muslim men went missing, believed killed and buried in secret graves, after Serbs captured the Muslim enclave, supposedly a U.N. "safe area," in one of the most horrific episodes of the Bosnia war.
Berserkistan, May 29 · Documentary Claims Serbia Provided Srebrenica Arms
Berserkistan, May 29 · War Crimes Team Probes Suspected Mass Grave
Berserkistan, Apr 5 · Tribunal Probes Srebrenica Killing Fields
Berserkistan, Massacre Hill In Bosnia's Killing Fields
Berserkistan, Ghosts in the Woods Investigating a Srebrenica Massacre Site
Serbs Massacre Muslims in "Safe Area" of Srebrenica
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia United Nations
Coalition for International Justice
Reports concerning human rights abuses in Bosnia Intac Access
Major War Criminals/Suspects CalTech's Bosnia Site
Reports on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia CalTech's Bosnia Site
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