MORE THAN 100 KOSOVO SERBS KILLED BEFORE UN MISSION STARTED TO BE IDENTIFIED
SRNA - December 2, 2003

Orahovac - A process of the post mortem examination and identification of more than 100 bodies started at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Orahovac today. The bodies, mainly of killed Kosovo Serbs, have been exhumed from the locations of Dragodan 2 in Pristina and the Orthodox Christian cemetery in Djakovica and Kacanik. "It is believed that these bodies had been found at a wider territory of Kosovo-Metohija and then buried at these locations," SRNA has been told by Vujadin Otasevic and Slavisa Dobricanin, forensic medicine experts at the Coordination Centre of Kosovo-Metohija who are in charge of identifying the bodies.

Members of UNMIK (UN Mission in Kosovo) will also take part in the identification of the bodies whose identities will be established by the use of DNA analysis. It is thought that the process will take at least 10 to 15 days.

It is believed that the bodies are mainly of Serbs who had been kidnapped or killed before the arrival of the (UN) peace mission in Kosovo-Metohija in 1998 and 1999 but some of them were killed following the arrival of the peacekeepers on 11 June 1999.

Source: SRNA news agency, Bijeljina, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 1815 gmt 2 Dec 03

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