At least 207 bodies have been exhumed from a mass grave found last month near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, site of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, and another grave with more than 100 bodies has been discovered nearby.
During the past two weeks "we have exhumed parts of skeletons of at least 207 Srebrenica victims," Murat Hurtic, a member of the Muslim-led state commission for missing persons, told journalists.
Some of the bones were of hands bound together by wire, and bullets were also found in the grave in the village of Kamenica, near Srebrenica, he said.
More than 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed after Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.
Hurtic earlier said that most of the skeletons were incomplete, "probably crushed by bulldozers" when the victims were buried.
He said work wound continue until next Tuesday and at least 20 more bodies were expected to be found in the Kamenica grave, where remains had been compressed into a hole four-by-four meters (yards) wide.
The commission had "reliable proof" that the remains were transported to this grave from another, initial burial site, he added.
The expert said another new mass grave containing at least 100 bodies was found in the Srebrenica vicinity, adding that exhumation would begin next week.
The victims from both graves are all believed to be Bosnian Muslims killed by Bosnian Serb forces when they captured Srebrenica under the eye of UN peacekeepers in July 1995.
So far some 6,000 bodies have been exhumed from over 20 mass graves, while hundreds of others were left lying on the ground around Srebrenica.
Only some 300 have been identified by DNA tests.
"It will be very difficult to establish the exact number of victims as in some cases bodies had been removed from one mass grave to several others," said Amor Masovic, the commission's head. "In the case of one male victim we found his legs in one, the head in another and the rest of the skeleton in a third mass grave" around Srebrenica, he added.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic have both been indicted for war crimes and genocide - including the Srebrenica massacres - by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Both are still at large.
Last year, the UN tribunal sentenced Bosnian Serb general Radoslav Krstic to 46 years in jail on charges of genocide over the Srebrenica atrocities.
AFP