Local Justice – Work Begins on Suspected Mass Grave in Brcko

Amela Mustafic, Prosecutor with the Brcko District Prosecution, said it was too early to give any concrete information about the grave because the exhumation had just begun.

The Association of Families of the Missing, Forcibly Taken and Killed Bosniaks suspect that the grave may contain the bodies of about 100 out of the remaining 250 Bosniak and Croat civilians who were killed in 1992 in the Brcko area and have still not been found. Initial information indicating that a mass grave might be located in Gorica village appeared in April this year, but the excavation did not start until October 26 because of procedural issues and the fact that the terrain is mined.

Two years ago another mass grave was found in this area. The remains of 277 people were exhumed from the site.

Data from the Research and Documentation Center, IDC, indicate that 1,658 people of different ethnicities were killed or disappeared in Brcko from 1992 to 1995.

As stated in verdicts rendered by the Hague Tribunal, the conflict on the territories of the former municipality of Brcko began in April 1992, when Serb forces took control in the town and began arresting, killing, detaining and deporting Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats.M.A.