TUZLA, OCT 12: Forensic experts have begun exhuming more than 240 bodies from the biggest mass grave discovered in Bosnia. The government-run commission for missing persons and the Boston-based physicians for human rights found the mass grave five days ago in the village of Donja Glumina, about 35 km east of here in an area controlled by Bosnian Serbs.The bodies were believed to be those of Bosnian Muslims killed at the beginning of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The grave was found with the help of witnesses who claimed they saw Yugoslav army troops bury the remains.
The bodies were transported here, where experts will try to identify them. Since 1996, about 1,800 bodies have been recovered from various mass graves in this area, but only a few of them have been identified.
Officials say most of the bodies recovered from mass graves in the eastern Bosnia region are believed to have been residents of the town of Srebrenica, overrun by the Serbs in July 1995.
Amor Masovic, the head of the Commission forMissing People, said he was optimistic that more of those found in the latest grave will be identified because ``a lot of personal things'' were recovered with the bodies.
Most of the bodies, dressed in civilian clothes, are in military plastic bags, officials said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.