OVER 400 BODIES EXHUMED FROM MASS GRAVES IN EASTERN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Sept 25 (Hina) - International war crimes tribunal investigators have so far found between 400 and 500 bodies buried in mass graves in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko told a news conference in Sarajevo on Wednesday. Ivanko added that exhumations, which began in July, would be suspened until next year because of worsening weather conditions. Two days ago teams of experts from the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia ended exhumations of mass graves at Cerska, Nova Kasaba, Lazeta and Pilice. However, an investigation in a cemetery outside Kalesija would continue for few more days. Ivanko said that there was evidence that the mass grave at Pilice, where about 140 bodies had been recovered, had been opened earlier and that whole skeletons or parts of them had been taken out. Tribunal investigators could not confirm the exact number of bodies because the victims, believed to be Bosnian Moslems from Srebrenica, had been dumped into mass graves where their remains were completely mixed up. A Bosnian government team of investigators has discovered another mass grave in the Nova Kasaba area, containing 33 bodies. Ivanko said that it would take a lot of effort to identify those victims because identification documents had been found only on two of them. (hina) vm 251303 MET sep 96