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Remains of 255 Muslims Exhumed in Northwestern Bosnia
SARAJEVO, Oct 3 (News Agencies) - The remains of 255 people, believed to be Muslim civilians killed by Bosnian Serb forces at the outbreak of Bosnia's 1992-95 war, have been exhumed from a mass grave in the northwest of the country, a Bosnian official said on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"According to preliminary evidence, all of the victims were civilians executed in early stage of the war," Amor Masovic, head of the Muslim-led state commission for missing people, told AFP.
The victims, exhumed during the last two weeks, are thought to be from six mainly Muslim villages near the northwestern town of Prijedor, he added.
Masovic said the victims were mainly men, but searchers had also exhumed the remains of several women and a 15-year-old. They had found a number of bullets and cartridge cases with the remains.
He said it appeared Serb forces had executed the Muslims and buried them in dozens of mass graves around the area.
When war crimes investigations started, the Serbs had apparently dug up the corpses and thrown them over a 85-meter-high (280-foot) cliff by the closed Ljubija iron mine near Prijedor. The cliff had then been dynamited, covering the bodies with rock and soil.
"This is why we have exhumed several separate body parts," he explained, adding that he hoped to find at least 30 more body parts over the next 10 days.
Thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were dragged from their homes in the Prijedor region at the start of the war, as part of the Bosnian Serbs' ethnic cleansing campaign.
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