THE mass grave in eastern Bosnia believed to contain the bodies of Muslims massacred by Serb execution squads last year continued to yield more corpses yesterday.
With the stench of death now pervading the site, war crimes investigators said they had uncovered one-third of the grave and could see at least three layers of bodies in the ground.
In all some 25 bodies had been exposed, Dr William Haglund, the forensic expert leading the investigation, said. "We have about 25 individuals we can see right now and we have seen people down to three layers," he said.
The grave is the first of eight mass tombs the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) hopes to excavate in Bosnia and Croatia this year.
Situated on a steep hillside below a dirt track running through thickly wooded hills, the mass tomb has been carefully mapped and photographed as investigators cleared the ground. Digging began on Tuesday and rapidly led to the first discovery of bodies.
The corpses are believed to be Bosnian Muslims gunned down by Serb separatists after fleeing the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, designated a UN safe area, which fell to Serb forces on July 11th of last year.
The decomposed bodies appear to lie where they would have fallen down the embankment.
On Tuesday two detached skulls lying on the ground were clearly visible. A boot could also be seen with leg bones protruding from it. Yesterday the exposed sections of the grave were covered with black plastic sheeting.
The investigators were not willing to say immediately what had caused the deaths but searches of the area to the far side of the grave have turned up mounds of empty bullet cases.
The grave is not the first discovered in Bosnia, but it is the first believed linked to the killings after the fall of Srebrenica.
At least 3,000 and possibly as many as 8,000 Muslim men are believed to have been massacred, some of them buried alive, by Serb forces in the worst atrocity in Europe since the second World War
The Bosnian Serb leaders, Dr Radovan Karadzic and Gen Ratko Mladic have been indicted by the ICTY over the Srebrenica killings. The tribunal is expected to issue international arrest warrants for the two later this week.
Meanwhile, a group of Finnish forensic scientists working at a separate site to recover the remains of around 100 bodies lying on open ground near to Srebrenica have left Bosnia because of lack of co-operation by the Serbs.
"The team has effectively ceased work in the Republika Srpska because of the obstructive attitude of the authorities," a UN spokesman, Mr Alexander lvanko, said, referring to the Bosnian Serb entity.
The team was escorted to the site by unarmed UN police monitors but had demanded security guarantees from the Serbs before continuing work begun last Friday.
Although the team was never physically prevented from working, "the promised guarantees never materialised," Mr Ivanko said.
Five team members will stay to work on the identification of 25 bodies collected so far.