5,800 VICTIMS DNA IDENTIFIED

About 5,800 victims of Srebrenica Genocide have been identified through DNA analysis, but they can be reburied only after 70 percent of the bodily remains have been identified. Bosnian Serbs first buried the bodies near the execution sites but then dug out many of them with bulldozers and reburied remains in secondary mass graves in an attempt to hide the crime.

Skeleton remains are marked as forensic experts of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) search for human remains in a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in the Serb controlled part of the country December 2, 2008. Forensic experts said on Tuesday they unearthed about 1000 skeleton remains of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide victims from the 12th mass grave found in the eastern Bosnian village of Kamenica. We covered this story on November 28 (see photos), and we have more grim updates from Reuters as excavations continue.

"Experts had hoped to complete the exhumations on Wednesday but say the work which started two months ago will finish next week," Reuters reported on December 3rd. Documents recovered from the grave showed the victims were from Srebrenica, forensic experts said (see photos of victims' personal belongings).

"Almost 90 percent of all remains had traces of bullet shots and some victims were blindfolded with rope-tied hands," said Vedo Tuco, forensic pathologist. "Some of the remains were of 14-to-15-year-old boys. The victims were killed at three locations near Srebrenica and transferred to the village of Kamenica from the original graves three months after the execution... There is a complete chaos in this mass grave. Some of the remains that we found here will probably be re-associated with the bodies that we had exhumed from other mass graves discovered in this village... They probably thought that nobody would ever return here and discover the crime," he added.

According to Reuters, about 5,800 victims of Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two have been identified through DNA analysis but they can be reburied only after 70 percent of the bodily remains have been identified. Bosnian Serbs first buried the bodies near the execution sites but then dug out many of them with bulldozers and reburied them in "secondary" mass graves in an attempt to hide the crime. Another mass grave has been located in the village but digging will likely start in the spring because of bad winter weather.

"Wherever I go the bones are being dug out and I cannot escape a smell of decaying bodies. This really is a Death Valley," Camila Mehmedovic, 61, told Reuters. "If I knew it would be like this, I would have never returned."

PHOTO UP: A Bosnian Muslim woman, Camila Mehmedovic (61), is a rare villager who returned to Kamenica after the war, mowed grass for her sheep from a nearby field before she learned there was a mass grave below. She gets clean water from a pipe in front of houses destroyed from the war in the Serb controlled part of the country December 2, 2008.

PHOTO UP: A forensic expert of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) holds remains of a Srebrenica genocide victim in a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in the Serb controlled part of the country December 2, 2008.

PHOTO UP: Forensic expert of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) searches for remains of Srebrenica genocide victims in a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in the Serb controlled part of the country December 2, 2008.

PHOTO UP: Bosnian worker watches, as members of the International Commission for Missing Persons ICMP, inspect body remains at a mass-grave site in the remote mountain area in the village of Kamenica near the Eastern-Bosnian town of Zvornik, 70 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008. Mass graves in Kamenica have been discovered by the International Commission for Missing Persons and are considered to be secondary mass-graves, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.

PHOTO UP: Bosnian man who is a local resident with his home near to the mass grave site, reacts while forensic experts in background inspect human remains at a mass-grave site in remote mountain area in the village of Kamenica near Eastern-Bosnian town of Zvornik, 80 kms north east of Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008. The mass grave is considered to be a secondary mass-grave, where bodies of Srebrenica genocide victims were moved to from another original site.

We have more coverage about Kamenica mass graves:

Kamenica "11" and "12" Yields 933 Remains of Srebrenica Genocide Victims (Nov 28, 2008)
Federal News Agency (FENA) reported that expert team of the Institute for Missing Persons in Tuzla (ICMP) exhumed 50 complete and 883 partial human remains of Srebrenica genocide victims from mass graves "Kamenica 11" and "Kamenica 12."

4,000 Srebrenica Genocide Victims Unearthed from Kamenica Mass Graves (Oct 7, 2008)
About 5,200 victims of Europe's worst genocide since World War 2 have been identified through DNA analysis so far. Approximately, 4000 victims were unearthed from 10 Kamenica mass graves.

More Srebrenica Genocide Victims Exhumed from Death Valley (Sep 22, 2008)
The victims were initially buried in a dozen mass graves. But after the release of satellite pictures showing large portions of freshly disturbed ground, Serbs moved them to other locations in order to cover up the crimes...

Photos of Srebrenica Genocide Victims Misused by Serbian Nationalists (Dec 6, 2007)
This kind of propaganda can be only produced by the sickest minds in order to misinform the public; and this is what they have been doing for the last 15 years with their bold faced lies and propaganda...

Kamenica Death Valley Yields 616 More Corpses (Nov 23, 2007)
We found 76 complete and 540 incomplete bodies," said Ismet Musić, an official of the regional commission for missing persons, standing on the edge of a muddy grave where white-clad forensic pathologists cleaned up bones. This brings the total number of exhumed bodies to over 4,200 just from the "Death Valley" area alone...

More Victims Found as 11th Anniversary of Genocide Looms (Jul 6, 2006)
Forensic experts said on Thursday they had unearthed the remains of 268 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - the first legally established case of genocide in Europe after the Holocaust - days before its 11th anniversary...

11th Anniversary of the Massacre (Jul 11, 2006)
Meanwhile, new Srebrenica victims were being unearthed at one of the largest mass graves discovered last month in the village of Kamenica, some 30 kilometers from Srebrenica. Among them - body remains of children; the youngest victim was a 10 year old girl...

Kamenica Mass Grave Yields Over 1,000 Body Parts (Aug 11, 2006)
A 10-person team, including forensic experts from Canada and Serbia employed by the Bosnia-based International Commission on Missing Persons, worked in the 18-meter by 4-meter (60 ft by 13 ft) grave...

Srebrenica Genocide: Crime Against All Humanity (Aug 18, 2006)
In Potocari on July 12 a 14-year-old Bosniak girl hung herself with her scarf after she and her 12-year old cousin were raped by Serb soldiers. By this time Serb soldiers had killed at least 99 people, including 20 to 30 women and children...

Genocide Trial Without Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic (Aug 22, 2006)
“Defenceless men and boys [were] executed by firing squads, buried in mass graves and then dug up and buried again in an attempt to conceal the truth from the world." Chief U.N. Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said many victims had been bound and blindfolded "to make the murder easier for the executioners"...

Srebrenica Genocide Trials and Mass Graves (Sep 18, 2006)
Ahmo Hasic "believed to be one of only 12 men who survived the slaughter of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys" told the judges he stayed alive only by playing dead after Serb soldiers started shooting.The trial chamber heard a similar testimony last week from Mevludin Oric who described how he lay under a pile of dead bodies for several hours...