EXHUMATION OF GRAVES IN CERIC BEGINS

CERIC, March 11 (Hina) - An exhumation of the victims of Serb aggression began in the eastern Croatian village of Ceric on Tuesday. Two bodies of elderly civilians were disinterred in the morning. The head of the local committee for exhumation, Stjepan Rozmaric, said that there were 18 individual graves in the part of Ceric that had been cleared of mines and that no mass grave sites had been found so far in that section. However, more than half the village was yet to be inspected for mines. At the site of the exhumation, which is coordinated by the Government Office for Detained and Missing Persons, forensic exports were identifying the victims with the help of their families. Forty-three civilians had gone missing since the Serb occupation of Ceric in October 1991. Of that number, 27 people were from Ceric while the remaining 16 were from Marinci and Bogdanovci. (hina) vm 111540 MET mar 97