FINNISH experts working under UN auspices ignored Bosnian Serb objections yesterday and recovered at least nine bodies believed to be those of Muslims killed while attempting to escape Srebrenica last year, the United Nations said.
"Despite not receiving promised authorisations from Serb authorities, the Finnish team began work today and at least nine body bags with remains were returned to Tuzla," Mr Alex Ivanko, a UN spokesman in Sarajevo, said.
"They may recover more bodies before the end of the day and they plan to work into the evening."
Police in the area have been obstructing the mission for days, in spite of verbal approval for it from Dr Biljana Plavsic, the acting President of the Bosnian Serb Republic.
The United Nations is trying to recover skeletal remains which have been lying exposed on a hillside in the Kravica area outside Srebrenica since Bosnian Serb forces overran the Muslim enclave in July, 1995.
Finland and the Netherlands are providing financial support for the 23 person mission, which has been charged with recovering the Muslim remains, identifying them individually and handing them over to Bosnian government authorities in Tuzla for burial.
Mr Ivanko said the team had done some clearance of mines on the Kravica site on Thursday and had been able to visually identify 35 bodies without any excavation.
Thousands of Srebrenica Muslims are missing and presumed dead at the hands of Serb forces, but individual families still hold out that hope their relatives might be hiding out in rugged mountains which surround the area.
The Kravica mission could resolve the fates of some of those missing.
Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his army commander, General Ratko Mladic, have both been indicted for war crimes connected to the fall of Srebrenica.
Because of this alleged complicity on the part of its top leaders the Bosnian Serbs have been reluctant to co-operate with war crimes tribunal investigators or with the Finnish team, which is working for the UN Centre for Human Rights.
Another group of 20 investigators working for the UN war crimes tribunal is about to launch a major operation in Bosnia to exhume a dozen mass grave sites in Bosnia and Croatia.
Mr Ivanko said their work would begin tomorrow at a site near Srebrenica, with general security and logistics support being provided by the Nato led peace implementation force in Bosnia.
The war crimes tribunal team will set up a temporary mortuary in Tuzla where forensic specialists will attempt to determine the causes and times of death of victims and identify them for re burial.
Care will also be taken to collect physical evidence from the site for possible use in tribunal proceedings.
Sources close to the tribunal said yesterday there was concern that some mass grave sites scheduled for investigation might have been tampered with and that bodies and physical evidence could have been removed.