Bosnia: Experts find 43 bodies in mass grave

All the victims had their hands tied behind their backs, which indicates that they were executed. To find out the sex and age of executed people, scientists need to analyze bodies and take DNA samples.

Photo: Bosnia: Experts find 43 bodies in mass grave

The mass grave in Buk Bijela was discovered near the local hydroelectric power plant, 10 kilometers (about six miles) north of the town of Foca.

The bodies were found in a tunnel that was used before the war for soil porosity examination. After killing these Muslims from the town of Foca, the Serb military forces planted mines in the tunnel to bury the entrance, Cirhlaz said.

Experts extract DNA from the bones and match it to the blood of relatives of the missing. So far thousands of victims from the 1992-95 Bosnian war have been identified using this method, the AP reports.

Over the years, U.N. and local forensics experts in Bosnia have exhumed more than 16,500 bodies from more than 300 mass graves. Thousands of people remain missing and are presumed dead.

About 260,000 people were killed and 1.8 million driven from their homes during the war, which pitted Bosnia's Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs against one another.