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Harvest of 1992 Killings Reaped in Bosnian Village
Horrors of Srebrenica don't overshadow search
A Bosnian coroner’s team on Monday began unearthing the remains of victims of Bosnian Serb forces who occupied the village of Svrake, 10 miles north of Sarajevo, from 1992 until early this year.
Their work was overshadowed by this week’s effort to uncover what are thought to be the Bosnian war’s most notorious mass graves at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, where Serb forces may have killed up to 7,000 Muslim civilians a year ago this week. But there are 250,000 people dead or missing from the 3½-year war. And families travel to small sites such as this one -- a tiny graveyard in a country village -- to search for answers to nagging questions.
Witnesses say the Bosnian Serb forces committed their crimes with an eye toward hampering evidence gathering later on. "They were clever in hiding their crimes," said Eset Muracovic, who returned to the village cemetery where years earlier he had helped bury the dead. "We know who those nine are," said chief investigator Izet Bazdaravic, sipping dark Turkish coffee at a picnic table set up in the graveyard and nodding at the diggers. "The others have to be identified."
There were two other sections roped off with police tape where digging had not yet begun in the back-yard-sized cemetery nestled among red-roofed houses. The nine bodies were identified principally because of one witness, Hamid Music. He traveled the 20 miles north from Hadzici on Monday to help with the dig. Music and other male residents of Hadzici were taken prisoner by Serb forces sweeping through the villages south of Sarajevo in July 1992. The Hadzici prisoners were brought to Svrake to dig trenches for the Serbs on the frontline.
On Dec. 12, Music said, a Serb soldier heard that his brother had been killed. He and a friend rounded up nine prisoners and drove them to a spot about two miles away, Music said. A while later, they returned and told prisoners to unload nine bodies from a truck and bury them, he said. "Their arms and legs were broken, their skulls were smashed and they had been shot to death," recalled Music.
He knew all nine prisoners, fellow Hadzici villagers -- including his brother, Saban, older by three years, dead at 46. When the Serbs handed Svrake back in March, Music came to pay his respects to his brother, and has visited regularly since. "Trial? I would like to be their court," he said of the two Serb soldiers, whom he knew. He swept his arm over the graves. "I would like to see them here."
About 50 villagers and Hadzici residents waited silently as two men tossed aside dirt. Some men crouched pitside, sharing cigarettes. When the bodies began to show -- an earth-caked calf bone emerged from a sock in an unlaced work shoe -- an older man stepped into the 30-inch deep pit and delicately eased the bodies apart. A girl, about 12, coughed as the decay became more pronounced in the midday heat.
When all nine bodies emerged, those in the crowd who had come from Hadzici crowded around the pit. A breeze blew through a pine tree overhanging the mass grave, showering the dead and living with needles. One woman peered inside the grave and the muscles on her face pulled back into a grimace, widening her eyes. She then strode out of the cemetery, her shoulders hunched and her hands stretched outwards from her hips. |
SVRAKE, Bosnia, July 9 (AP) - Nine plywood coffins lay in a neat row against the mosque’s shell, bathed in sunshine flowing through blown out windows. Across a patch of matted grass infested with weeds, nine skeletons in blue prison uniforms lay side by side in a shallow pit, their skulls pointing toward the coffins.
Berserkistan, July 7 · Excavation Begins at Srebrenica Mass Grave
Berserkistan, July 3 · Mladic Promised Safety to Srebrenica Muslims
Berserkistan, June 8 · Srebrenica Victim Graves Probed at Brnica
Berserkistan, June 5 · Mass Grave at Nova Kasaba May Hold 2700 Srebrenica Victims
Berserkistan, May 29 · Documentary Claims Serbia Provided Srebrenica Arms
Berserkistan, Massacre Hill Jim Bartlett in Bosnia's Killing Fields
Berserkistan, Ghosts in the Woods Team Berserkistan Investigates 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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