Passing Time Makes Search for Bosnia’s Wartime Missing Harder

However, associations of families of missing persons argue that the Bosnian Missing Persons Institute, the International Commission on Missing Persons and the Bosnian state prosecution should have found more of the remaining missing persons by now.

Police and security services 'concealing information'

Exhumation of a body from a suspected mass grave site in Sarajevo in November 1998. Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR,

The Missing Persons Institute says that the search for the missing continues, but that the process has entered its most difficult phase because it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain genuine information about hidden grave sites.

"At the same time, institutions have documents that could lead to discovery of graves, but they keep them locked in their drawers. Intelligence services and police bodies, which are in possession of information from 1991 and 1992, are hiding the data that investigators need," said Missing Persons Institute spokesperson Emza Fazlic.

The Bosnian prosecutor's office admits that fewer and fewer mass graves are being discovered, adding that the passage of time makes the search for war victims' remains more difficult, but the lack of reliable information constitutes the biggest obstacle.

"When searching for the missing, the most important thing is to have reliable and correct information on the locations where their remains are. There is less and less of such information, so we invest additional efforts through our investigations to obtain information on locations where mortal remains might be found," said prosecutor's office spokesperson Boris Grubesic.

Amor Masovic, the chairman of the board of directors of the Missing Persons Institute, said that information about...