Prijedor: Dozens of Bosnian Genocide Victims Discovered in Mass Grave

Tomasica mass grave near prijedor (Bosnian Genocide).

Dozens of bodies discovered in Bosnian mass grave believed to be victims of genocide carried out by Serb forces in northern Bosnia.

• Authorities already find 100 bodies and expect to discover many more
• In the biggest mass grave found so far in the area, near the village Stari Kevljani, the remains of some 473 victims were exhumed in 2003.
• Tomasica mass grave victims believed to be Bosniaks and Croats killed in the summer of 1992
  Bosnian Serb forces attempted to eliminate all non-Serbs from the region
• 1,200 missing people are still missing from the area

Dozens of bodies discovered buried in a mass grave are believed to be those of Bosniaks and Croats killed by Serb forces in the early days of the ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Forensics experts have already uncovered 100 bodies at the site in the village of Tomasica, near the Bosnian town of Prijedor, 260km north west of Sarajevo, and say they expect to disover many more.

Initial excavations unearthed a seven metre thick layer composed of human remains hidden under artificial embankments.

They were killed in a brutal campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from parts of the country they controlled during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Paramilitary units and the Bosnian Serb army expelled the non-Serb population, destroyed their homes and separated families while forcing thousands into detention camps where many were tortured and later executed.

Pictures of emaciated inmates at one of the concentration camps, Omarska, resembling images from the Holocaust, shocked the world in the summer of 1992.

More than 3,300 people were reported missing from the Prijedor area. So far the remains of more than 2,000 victims have been found and identified, mostly by DNA analysis.

Bosnia’s prosecution office said they expect this to be one of the largest mass graves ever found in this part of the country.

‘We have exhumed 47 complete skeletons, as well as the remains of some 50 other victims,’ Lejla Cengic, spokeswoman of the Bosnian Institute for Missing Persons, told AFP on Saturday.

The mass grave was found in April in a disused mine in the town of Tomasica, in the northwestern Bosnian region of Prijedor.

It is one of the biggest mass graves found in the region in the past 10 years, Cengic said.

‘The victims were found in very deep ground, at around 10 metres, which is very unusual,’ Cengic said.

DNA tests will be carried out to identify the remains.

Some 3330 people were reported missing from the Prijedor region after Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war ended in 1995. Some 1,200 are still unaccounted for, Cengic said.

So far 96 mass graves containing the remains of local Bosniaks and Croats have been found in the Prijedor area, and the remains of some 2100 victims have been identified mostly through DNA analysis, officials said.

In the biggest mass grave found so far in the area, near the village Stari Kevljani, the remains of some 473 victims were exhumed in 2003.

Forensic work at the Tomasica site may take another month, officials said.

After Bosnian Serbs took control of the region in April 1992, the homes of non-Serbs were destroyed, families were separated and thousands of people were incarcerated in concentrations camps like Manjaca, Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje, where many civilians were tortured, women and girls brutally raped, starved, and executed.

Pictures of the emaciated inmates at one of the detention camps, Omarska, shocked the world in mid-1992.