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Wednesday, June 16, 1999 Published at 17:10 GMT 18:10 UK World: Europe Mass graves come to light ![]() A KLA fighter cries at an alleged mass grave in Buznik The scale of Serb atrocities in Kosovo is starting to emerge as more mass grave sites are found across the province.
According to a former KLA soldier who was hiding in the nearby mountains at the time, Serbian police buried about 60 bodies in an old cemetery there.
The KLA has also given the BBC video footage of an alleged massacre in Koliq, where it says Serb forces slaughtered more than 60 refugees who could not hand over enough money. On Tuesday, a site was found by Dutch troops in the village of Krusa, 15km northwest of Prizren. "We found what looks like the remains of 20 burnt bodies and it was horrible," said Mike Bos, a spokesman for the Dutch K-For peacekeepers. More evidence of atrocities was also reported in villages south of the provincial capital, Pristina. In Ribari Vogel, locals told how Serb forces had slaughtered 26 people aged six to 97.
The next day the Serbs reportedly moved to the village of Hallaq, where locals said they massacred another 20 people after lining them up against a wall. And residents of Koronica in western Kosovo reported finding an estimated 150 buried bodies - victims of a massacre of village men by Serb forces. Kacanik investigations
There are 35 fresh graves in the churchyard at Kacanik, said to contain the bodies of around 85 Kosovo Albanians. Reports said local people had been seen removing bodies from holes in the ground and transferring them to a graveyard.
War crimes investigators are on their way to the site, and the discovery is being reported to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. One villager said the victims, including children, were killed two months ago when Serbian soldiers threw grenades into a crowd and then shot all those left alive. But a local member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) said the grave contained victims of a Serbian ethnic cleansing operation on 9 April in the neighbouring village of Proni Rakocit.
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