Bosnia digging up what could be biggest mass grave
AMEL EMRIC / Associated Press
Forensic experts seach for remains in the village of Tomasica. So far, the remains of 360 people have been found. The number could eventually surpass the 629 found in Srebrenica.
TOMASICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Two decades after Serb soldiers conducted house-to-house searches in a campaign of ethnic killings in Bosnia, forensic scientists are digging up what could turn out to be the largest mass grave from the 1992-95 war.
Institute official Mujo Begic said he expected more remains to be found at the Tomasica site, and the bodies are of Bosniak and Croat men, women, and children killed in their villages during the war.
"Together with the relocated ones, the number of the bodies here indicates the biggest mass grave so far found in Bosnia," Begic said.The grave covers more than 53,820 square feet and is about 30 feet deep.
So far, the remains of 360 people have been found at the Tomasica mass grave discovered in September near the northern town of Prijedor, far more than expected, authorities said Thursday. The number is expected to rise and could one day surpass the 629 bodies found at Crni Vrh in Srebrenica.
The Missing Persons' Institute said the Tomasica grave is linked to a secondary one found in 2003 about six miles away, where 373 bodies were extracted. Authorities believe the perpetrators of the killings moved parts of the remains from one grave to the other in a bid to hide the crime. In some cases, remains from the same person have been found in both graves.Institute official Mujo Begic said he expected more remains to be found at the Tomasica site, and the bodies are of Bosniak and Croat men, women, and children killed in their villages during the war.
Tomasica is near Prijedor, a site of severe crimes against humanity committed by Christian Orthodox Serbs against Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats. Many of the victims were killed in one of the three Nazi-style concentration camps Serb authorities had set up near Prijedor.
Authorities hope some of the 1,200 still missing from the area are found in the Tomasica grave.
Most victims were killed in their villages and brought to this location to be buried, but teams have found bullets in the grave, indicating it was also an execution site, prosecutor Eldar Jahic said, citing evidence and witnesses.
Near the grave, Vahida Behlic, 51, sobbed as she watched forensic experts lifting bones from the site, skeletons piled on top of one another. She came because she thinks one of the skeletons could be of her mother, Fatima, who was 60 when, according to witness testimony, Serb soldiers came, dragged her out of the basement, and shot her in front of her house.
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