Kalinovik Mass Grave Contains Srebrenica Victims, Experts Confirm

They told BIRN BiH the mass grave is the furthest from Srebrenica in which victims from that town have been found, and that it lies in the zone of operation of the so-called Scorpions unit.

Matthew Holliday, head of the Western Balkans Programme of ICMP, said that on December 8 the ICMP submitted DNA match reports related to ten people to the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina, INO BiH.

They belong to victims of the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide found during an exhumation in Kalinovik six months ago.

He told BIRN BiH it was unusual to find a mass grave of Srebrenica victims so far from the eastern Bosnian town, and that the mass grave is the furthest distance from Srebrenica and Potocari to be exhumed so far.

It was also the first exhumation of Srebrenica victims in more than five years since an exhumation in Kozluk in 2015, he noted.

Holliday said family members provided information and genetic material, allowing the ICMP to determine that the ten bodies were from Srebrenica.

"We can only speculate how they got there, whether they were executed elsewhere and buried there or were they executed at the site. This is for the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to determine, between SIPA and the Prosecutor's Office through their further investigations," he explained.

In June this year, BIRN BiH spent one day in the Dobro Polje area of Kalinovik together with investigators and relatives of the missing from Kalinovik who were hoping that remains of lost family members had been buried there.

At that time, it had not been officially confirmed that the victims might be from Srebrenica.

When the BIRN BiH crew observed the newly discovered grave, members of INO BiH, investigators of the State...