(BRANJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina—AP) William Haglund walked through a Bosnian farm Friday, stopping where human bones protruded from the mud. Over and over, he inserted a five-foot steel pole into the earth, pulled it out and sniffed for death. "You can smell it when it’s there," said U.N. investigator Jean-Rene Ruez, explaining why his colleague was raising the probe to his nose. Haglund, a U.N. consultant from Seattle who works with the Boston-based group Physicians for Human Rights, recorded his observations with a tape recorder, speaking too quietly for observers to hear him.
He and his six U.N. colleagues were searching for evidence of a mass grave believed to lie beneath the collective farm in the heart of Bosnian Serb territory. Branjevo is about 30 miles northwest of Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave that fell to the Serbs last July. About 7,000 men disappeared when the town fell. Witnesses say Serb soldiers took the men away, executed them and buried them on farms.
Perhaps 1,000 Buried Here
Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, visited the site two weeks ago and said she believed as many as 1,000 people were buried under the farm. The U.N. team searched Friday for evidence to back up that belief. They took photographs of mounds of dirt and of human remains that protruded from them. They tagged each bit of evidence with yellow markers. Team members said it was only a preliminary investigation and declined to talk about what they found. There have been no major excavations since they arrived in the area Monday, and none are expected until May.A Bosnian Serb told the Paris newspaper Le Figaro last month that he and fellow commandos were ordered on July 20 to execute about 1,200 men dressed in civilian clothing who were bused in to be shot. Drazen Erdemovic, who has since been extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, said he personally shot 70 men during the killing spree. "I tried to kill as few people as possible," he said. "At one point, I murmured to one of my comrades, ‘God knows everything we’ve done today.’ He snapped back at me, ‘Shut up and shoot!’"
One of Several Srebrenica Grave Sites
Branjevo is just one of several places near Srebrenica believed to hold mass graves. Investigators are spreading out to search them for evidence that can be used by the war crimes tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the slaughter. On Thursday, the U.N. investigators found dozens of blindfolds and some human remains in the village of Sahinici, supporting survivors’ accounts of a slaughter of hundreds there.And on Friday, Bosnian Serbs said they had excavated 181 bodies near the western town of Mrkonjic Grad since March 30. The Serbs say the victims were killed by Muslim and Croat troops during an offensive last fall. All but one of the bodies showed signs of violence, the head of the team, Zoran Stankovic, told the Belgrade, Yugoslavia-based Tanjug news agency on Friday. Tanjug said 74 of the 181 bodies removed so far had been identified. Stankovic said the victims were mostly civilians, with the youngest 22 years old and the oldest over 90. There were some soldiers in the grave, and the bodies of women killed in their nightgowns.
"I never saw so many bodies with severe head injures," he later told The Associated Press. "About half of all the victims were killed with a serious blunt instrument, apparently without possibility to defend themselves." Stankovic said international observers were present during the dig, and the Serbs filmed the procedure.
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 from CalTech's Bosnia Site
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