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More Bodies Exhumed at Cerska Grave Site By Mark Heinrich
A 20-member team of pathologists, forensic anthropologists and other experts set up camp in a forest near Cerska 35 km (20 miles) west of Srebrenica on Sunday, targeting about a dozen mass graves in the lush rolling countryside of Serb-controlled eastern Bosnia. At least 3,000 unarmed Muslim men and possibly as many as 8,000 were machinegunned after capture or mowned down in ambushes as they dashed for safety in Bosnian government territory to the west. The experts are trying to corroborate survivors' testimony given to the tribunal, which has indicted Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic and political chief Radovan Karadzic for genocide and which on Monday called on major international powers to arrest the pair.
The Srebrenica bloodbath may have been Europe's worst war atrocity since the Nazi Holocaust against Jews and a judicial reckoning with the killers is considered crucial to a lasting peace in the former Yugoslav republic. ICTY investigators started excavating a site beside a dirt road on a wooded hill near Cerska late on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon they had exposed a number of putrifying human remains, some still clothed, some skeletal and some still bearing skin.
"We have found the edge of the grave by carefully removing the soil, rocks and debris on top of the bodies. We're seeing some clothing and we are seeing some bodies now," said William Haglund, an American forensic anthropologist heading the team. "I imagine there are going to be bodies that are maybe lying on top of each other. How many, and how spread out they are, we don't know yet," he told reporters.
ICTY team members were excavating a 30-metre (100 foot) longtrench in an embankment dipping down from the road. Working in a long row, they used shovels, pickaxes, spades, brushes and paint scrapers to ease out and sift away soil, taking care not to disturb the delicate human remains. Red flags were stuck in the ground at intervals along the dig site to denote evidence. Mineral water bottles were kept at top of the trench to refresh the diggers in the summer heat. A seven-tonne mechanical digger stood on a cleared flat area below scooping away mounds of earth and guided by Haglund to ensure it did not destroy any evidence.
"We will momentarily leave bodies where we find them. We want to make sure we have each body carefully defined, so that when we go to pick them up, we get all the finger bones, foot bones, everything that belonged to that body,'' Haglund said. "Because the more complete the body is, the more complete the story that body or skeleton will tell and the more complete the information we'll have for generating clues to identification." "We are uncovering parts of remains. We are trying to determine where entire bodies extend, whether hands are lying beside them or whether limbs are outstretched or bent. Parts of the remains will be skeletalised and parts will probably have flesh on them," Haglund said. "We will continue in this mode probably for the next couple of days."
The guarded Cerska grave was expected to be fully exhumed by the end of the week.
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CERSKA, Bosnia, July 9 (Reuters) - U.N. war crimes investigators on Tuesday unearthed several bodies at a mass grave of Muslims believed executed by Serb forces after the fall Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia a year ago. Experts sent by the U.N. international war crimes tribunal on former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have begun a field mission to expose the truth of what happened after the Serbs entered the town.
Berserkistan, July 8 · Cerska Grave Site Yields First Corpse
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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