BUGOJNO CROATS CONTINUES BUGOJNO, April 12 (Hina) - No new victims were discovered on Monday in the continuation of a search for a group of Bosnian Croats killed during the 1993 Croat-Muslim conflict and afterwards. The site
investigated today is the Japaga pit on Mt Kalin in Bugojno, central Bosnia. Four cavers went down the 45-metre-deep pit in search of human remains, but the search yielded no results. The pit was suspected to hide the bodies of 20 Croats from the so-called Bugojno group. Exhumation works, which started on April 8, are organised by the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the humanitarian organisation "Doctors for human rights". So far, 36 bodies have been unearthed at seven different locations, of whom 30 have been identified, including Vinko Ivkovic, the first identified among the 21 Bugojno Croats abducted from Muslim prison camps. The exhumation was secured by local police a
BUGOJNO, April 12 (Hina) - No new victims were discovered on Monday
in the continuation of a search for a group of Bosnian Croats killed
during the 1993 Croat-Muslim conflict and afterwards.
The site investigated today is the Japaga pit on Mt Kalin in
Bugojno, central Bosnia. Four cavers went down the 45-metre-deep
pit in search of human remains, but the search yielded no results.
The pit was suspected to hide the bodies of 20 Croats
from the so-called Bugojno group.
Exhumation works, which started on April 8, are organised by the
Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
humanitarian organisation "Doctors for human rights".
So far, 36 bodies have been unearthed at seven different locations,
of whom 30 have been identified, including Vinko Ivkovic, the first
identified among the 21 Bugojno Croats abducted from Muslim prison
camps.
The exhumation was secured by local police and the Stabilisation
Force (SFOR). Monitoring the exhumation were also a delegation of
the federal commission for exchange and search for missing people,
headed by its head Berislav Pusic, a commission's member Jasmin
Odabasic, and Croat representatives in the Bugojno municipal
authorities.
"Having received a report that 21 war prisoners from Bugojno....
had been killed and thrown into the Japaga pit on Mt Kalina, we
brought a team of cavers who went down the 45 metre-deep pit and saw
for themselves that there are no traces which could indicate that
any of the Croats we are searching for could be in the pit", Pusic
said.
The commission would continue searching for the group, he added.
Pusic also said that far greater assistance had been expected from
the Bosniak (Muslim) side, since Bosniak officials in high
political positions had data on the abduction and fate of the
missing Bugojno Croats. They say that the exhumations we are
conducting are political exhumations, which I resolutely dismiss,
Pusic added.
(hina) rml