Bosnia, Serbia Exchange Exhumed Remains of War Dead

Exhumation at a suspected mass grave site in Sarajevo in November 1998. Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR.

The exchange of the remains of five war victims took place on Thursday at the Raca border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

Emza Fazlic, the spokesperson for the Bosnian Missing Persons Institute, said that the remains of four people exhumed in Bosnia and Herczegovina were handed over to the Serbian Missing Persons Commission because the families wanted them to be officially identified and buried in Serbia.

Fazlic named two of them as Novka Lemez and Bosiljka Mandic, who disappeared in the Sarajevo area during the war

She said that Lemez’s remains were exhumed at the Kosevo stadium in Sarajevo in 1998, while Mandic’s were exhumed at the Lav cemetery in Sarajevo in 1999.

“In both cases, the victims were finally identified in 2019, and the families expressed the wish that their remains be buried in the Belgrade area,” said Fazlic.

The two other people whose remains were handed over to Serbia are believed to be Serbs who disappeared in the Sarajevo area in 1992.

“Their remains were exhumed at the Lav cemetery in Sarajevo in 1999. The official identification will be done in the Republic of Serbia,” said Fazlic.

Serbia handed over to the Bosnian Missing Persons Institute the incomplete remains of one war victim, believed to be a Bosnian Serb who disappeared in 1992 in Rozanj in the Zvornik municipality.

“The remains of this victim were buried under the designation ‘unknown person’ in Belgrade in 1992, and were exhumed in 2004. The identity of the victim was preliminarily determined in 2019 using the DNA method,” Fazlic said.

The remains will be stored at the Miljevici Memorial Ossuary in East Sarajevo until they are definitively identified, she added.