Bosnia's 'biggest' mass grave uncovered

HUMAN bones came to light as excavators scraped away topsoil yesterday, at the beginning of forensic work at what experts believe is the largest mass grave found to date in Bosnia.

The bones, believed to be those of Muslim civilians, were dug up from an area the size of a tennis court. The grave is believed to contain the remains of several hundred war crimes victims killed during the 1992-1995 war, among them some who died in the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.

"This is most likely the biggest mass grave ever found in Bosnia and it will take us more than a month to uncover all the bodies," said Murat Hurtic, the head of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons for the Tuzla region.

The site is near the eastern Bosnian village of Memici, 50 miles north-east of Sarajevo and was detected a year ago following tips from witnesses who had seen convoys of trucks heading that way, loaded with human remains.

Hundreds of Bosnian Muslims were executed when Serb forces occupied the area close to the Serbian border at the start of the war. Their bodies were initially buried together at the local Muslim cemetery in nearby Zvornik.

Later, in 1995, some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were summarily executed after Serb forces overran the nearby UN protected enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.