SARAJEVO – The remains of about 100 people believed to have been Muslims killed early in the Bosnian 1992-95 war have been unearthed from a lake bed on the border between Bosnia and Serbia, forensic experts have said.
“We have unearthed a total of 396 skeletal remains which belong to at least 97 bodies,” said Amor Masovic, the head of Bosnia’s Missing Persons Institute.
The victims, believed to be some of the 1,000 Bosnian Muslims who went missing from the eastern town of Visegrad in 1992, were found in a joint effort by Bosnian and Serbian forensic experts during a 2½-month operation.
Mr Masovic said the operation was one of the most extensive since the search for war victims began in 1996 and the first conducted together with Serbian and Kosovar officials, reflecting the improvement in relations between former rivals.
Some 2,000 experts and volunteers took part in the search along both sides of Lake Perucac, a 60km-long dammed section of the Drina river that has been largely emptied for dam repairs.
Veljko Odalovic, head of the Serbian commission for missing persons, said remains thought to belong to 11 victims were found on the Serbian bank of the lake.
“I believe that establishing the fate of the missing is one of the most important issues and could be a key for the reconciliation in the region,” Mr Odalovic said, adding that it should serve as an example on how to resolve outstanding issues between the former foes.
Some 14,000 people are still missing from the Balkan wars of the 1990s, 10,000 of them in Bosnia. – (Reuters)