Serbia has discovered a mass grave with an estimated 250 bodies of ethnic Albanians believed to have been killed during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo, a spokesman for Serbia's war crimes prosecutor said today.
"We can confirm that a mass grave was uncovered," Bruno Vekaric told Reuters. "According to our assessment, 250 bodies were found in a location near the one we had searched two years ago."
The grave was found in Serbia's south region of Raska with the help of the European Union's law and order mission in Kosovo, Eulex, Mr Vekaric said.
Nato fought an air war in 1999 to force Serbian forces out of Kosovo and end ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Albanian majority waging a guerrilla struggle for independence from Belgrade.
Serbian forces were at the time controlled by Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 before the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague was able to give a verdict in his trial for war crimes.
Vekaric said it would take some time before exhumation could start. "It takes several days for approvals and the means required," Vekaric said.
"This [finding] will help us to obtain evidence vital for some cases of the [Serbian] prosecutor's office," he added. "But this is very important because it strengthens Serbia's democratic credibility."
The largest mass grave with corpses of more than 800 Kosovo Albanians was found in 2001 in pits on a police training ground outside Belgrade and in eastern Serbia.
Reuters