EXHUMATION OF MASS GRAVES BEGINS IN PETROVCI

( Editorial: --> 6763 ) PETROVCI, Dec 8 (Hina) - An expert team of the Croatian government's commission for detained and missing persons on Monday began the exhumation of mass graves in Petrovci, a village in the UN- administered part of the Vukovar-Srijem County in eastern Croatia. The remains of four persons had been unearthed in a mass grave at the Petrovci cemetery, the president of the commission Ivan Grujic told reporters. Another mass grave with the remains of eight to 14 persons is expected to be found in the same village tomorrow, he said. Two of the four persons whose remains were exhumed today were identified as defenders, Grujic said. All remains would undergo final identification at the Institute of Pathology in Vinkovci, he said. An exhumation would also be carried out in nearby Bogdanovci, while those in Vukovar would begin late January or early February. According to Grujic, exhumations would be carried out at the Novo Groblje cemetery in Vukovar, where it is believed about 1,200 persons were buried. The remains of victims from 1991, buried around the Catholic Cemetery in Old Vukovar, would also be looked for, he added. Grujic recalled that more than 1,200 persons were still to be traced in eastern Croatia. He warned that the number of victims to be exhumed was probably higher. "Our experience to date has shown us that, while looking for a missing person during exhumations, we almost always find two or three others who had not been claimed. This is because their families knew that these persons had been killed, but not buried at the same spot (of the killing), so they did not initiate a tracing procedure", Grujic said. He announced that the government's commission for detained and missing persons would soon include a similar commission of local Serbs from eastern Croatia. (hina) ha jn 081919 MET dec 97