A QUARTER OF A CENTURY LATER, MASS GRAVES ARE STILL BEING UNEARTHED IN BOSNIA

 

A new mass grave has been unearthed in Bosnia. The discovery has given hope to some that their loved one's remains might finally be identified. 

A fresh escavation has brought to light hundreds of bodies believed to be from Muslims and Croats massacred in the Yugoslavian conflict. 

The mass grave was found in the Spring, when an old mine shaft was explored in the town of Tomasica, in northeastern Prijedor.  

This is believed to be the largest mass grave ever found in the region. 

Many many people attend daily the excavations: they hope that the next white bundle will be that of their brother, or father, or uncle.  

The mass grave was one of many found in the so called "triangle of horror" a region where many detainees of internment camps disappeared without a trace.   The camps, with their thousands of huddled, emaciated prisoners, were the foremost reason for international involvement in Bosnia.  The pictures were almost identical to those taken at Nazi camps during world war II. 

The party responsible for the finding is the Bosnian Institute for Missing People, which acted on a tip from Serbian soldiers. 

A quarter of a century on, the organization is still looking for more than 1,200 of 3,000 people who disappeared in that region.  

The mass grave, so far, has yielded 240 bodies, and of those 170 were complete skeletons.  But that's only so far.  The organization believes that there are hundreds more still to be exhumed.  If it continues at this pace, the mass grave could become the largest not only of the area where it lies, but of the entire country.  

The victims found in the mass graves were captured during a genocidal campaign conducted by Serbian forces that took control of Prijedor in 1992, in which families were separated and all males were forced in concentration camps, while many women were raped or abused, even killed by the occupying soldiers. 

The bodies found show an incredible will by the Serbian soldiers to keep the bodies from ever been found.  Most of them were buried at a depth of 33-40 feet, a staggering dig, by any comparison. 

Source : France 24/ 10.28.13