SARAJEVO, Aug 12 (Hina) - More than 80 bodies have been exhumed since the start of August from a mass grave in Crni Vrh near the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik, the head of the regional department of the state commission for mission
persons in Tuzla, Murat Hurtic, said Tuesday.
SARAJEVO, Aug 12 (Hina) - More than 80 bodies have been exhumed
since the start of August from a mass grave in Crni Vrh near the
eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik, the head of the regional
department of the state commission for mission persons in Tuzla,
Murat Hurtic, said Tuesday. #L#
He told reporters that the remains of three children under the age
of 12 and at least five women were exhumed from the mass grave. "We
can say that the grave contains the bodies of civilians who were
executed in 1992," said Hurtic, adding that the victims were
Bosnian Muslims from the wider Zvornik municipality.
It is assumed that the bodies of more than 100 victims are buried in
Crni Vrh. Those bodies had been transferred from other locations in
an attempt to cover up the crime.
A member of the Bosnian Presidency, Sulejman Tihic, and several
federation officials visited the exhumation site today. Tihic told
reporters he was horrified with what he had seen.
"I am horrified with the size of this mass grave, as well as with the
fact that this was a systematically executed crime the
responsibility for which lays on the authorities of Republika
Srpska," Tihic said.
He stressed that all those defending Republika Srpska as it exists
today must be aware that it was founded on aggression and mass
crimes. The Bosnian Muslim member of the Presidency said that the
best piece of evidence for this was the fact that in eastern Bosnia
alone 35 mass graves with close to 6,000 bodies had been discovered
so far.
The least that Bosnian Serb authorities can do, Tihic says, is to
reveal the locations of the remaining mass graves as soon as
possible. Should they fail to do it on a voluntary basis, the
international community would make them, Tihic said.
He visited the mass grave site at a time when Belgrade is pressuring
Bosnian authorities to drop the aggression and genocide suit
against the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia before the
International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic and Justice Minister Vladan
Batic have called on the Bosnian authorities drop the charges in
order to improve the two countries' relations.
Batic said in Belgrade on Tuesday that unless Bosnia acted in line
with the request by Serbian authorities, Serbia and Montenegro
would forward to The Hague ample documentation which will prove
that Serbs in Bosnia were in fact the victims of genocide and mass
persecutions.
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