The remains of 26 ethnic Albanians believed to have been killed by Serb forces in Kosovo during the 1999 war have been dug up in southwestern Serbia, the Tanjugnews agency reported today.
"The exhumation work took three days and covered a large area to allow the possible discovery of new bodies, but that was not the case," said a statement from Serbian court officials in Uzice, quoted by the agency.
Exhumation work and an autopsy of the bodies that have already been unearthed is to continue tomorrow, the statement added.
The grave was suspected to contain the remains of between 50 and 60 bodies of Kosovo Albanians killed in the province in April 1999 - at the height of the war - and transported to Serbia aboard a refrigerator truck.
The truck itself was then pushed into the reservoir at the Bajina Basta hydroelectric plant.
However, local residents reportedly saw bodies floating in the lake shortly afterwards. The corpses were therefore removed from the sunken truck and buried in a mass grave.
Serbian police revealed the existence of the mass grave in mid-July.
AFP