SARAJEVO, June 13 (Hina) - For five years since the fall of the then UN "save haven" Srebrenica in the hands of Serbs, remains of just 76 killed persons have been identified, said Doctor Rifat Kesetovic, Sarajevo on Tuesday.
Kesetovic, who is leading a project of identification of victims killed in eastern Bosnia, said the process of identification came to a halt owing to a lack of financial means and numerous administrative obstacles. He informed about this during Tuesday's presentation of a book that contains photographs of parts of the clothes or personal belongings of Srebrenica victims that have been found in recent years. Kesetovic stressed that in special storehouses in Tuzla (north-eastern Bosnia) there are remains of almost 4,000 killed Srebrenica residents waiting for procedures of identification. "We simply have no strategy for the expeditious identification of victims," the docto
SARAJEVO, June 13 (Hina) - For five years since the fall of the then
UN "save haven" Srebrenica in the hands of Serbs, remains of just 76
killed persons have been identified, said Doctor Rifat Kesetovic,
Sarajevo on Tuesday.
Kesetovic, who is leading a project of identification of victims
killed in eastern Bosnia, said the process of identification came
to a halt owing to a lack of financial means and numerous
administrative obstacles.
He informed about this during Tuesday's presentation of a book that
contains photographs of parts of the clothes or personal belongings
of Srebrenica victims that have been found in recent years.
Kesetovic stressed that in special storehouses in Tuzla (north-
eastern Bosnia) there are remains of almost 4,000 killed Srebrenica
residents waiting for procedures of identification.
"We simply have no strategy for the expeditious identification of
victims," the doctor warned.
The Croat-Moslem federal commission for the search of missing
persons, the federal Red Cross and the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) mission in Bosnia, together with an
association of women and mothers from Srebrenica and Zepa, have
decided to launch the publishing of collections of photos of
belongings and parts of clothes of unidentified victims from
eastern Bosnian enclaves. The photos should be shown to families
that have reported that some of their members have gone missing
since Bosnian Serb armed forces took over those areas.
"Our mistake was that we gave up this usual method of identification
three and a half years ago, and that's why today we have only 76
identified corpses," said Amor Masovic, the head of the
Federation's commission in charge of searching missing persons.
When United States' partners insisted on the method with the DNA, we
made a decision to follow their suggestion. This, however, turned
to be expensive and slow.
The head of the ICRC mission, Balthazar Staehlin, said the
presented collection included 1,756 photos of personal belongings
of clothes items from 1,756 Srebrenica victims.
Staehlin added that families of 17,380 registered missing persons
in Bosnia were still waiting for light to be shed on the destiny of
their dear ones.
Masovic reiterated that it was not still established exactly how
many people disappeared during the war. He believed that actually
at least 25,000 persons could be regarded as missing. He added that
his commission had the data of about 8,500 missing Srebrenica
citizens.
The society of mothers and wives from Srebrenica reported that
10,701 persons had gone missing from their hometown and of them,
there were 1,300 children under age.
Masovic said there were reliable data that Bosnian Serbs had dug
over mass graves in order to hide traces of war crimes.
He added that mass graves had been re-dug in the autumn 1995 for the
first time, at the order of Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic.
Families of the killed and missing Srebrenica citizens announced
that they would hold a rally on 11 July in a former base of Dutch UN
units, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Srebrenica
tragedy.
(hina) jn ms