BIRN Launches Database of Mass Graves from Yugoslav Wars

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN on June 3 launched the first comprehensive, interactive database of mass graves from the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia, giving an unprecedented insight into the largest operations to cover up war crimes in Europe since World War II.

The Bitter Land database provides information in three languages (English, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Albanian) on the location of mass graves from the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo, including the number of victims identified after exhumations, archive reports and images, plus details of related court cases, witness testimonies and other resources.

It is being launched ahead of the final verdict on June 8 in the trial of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, who stands accused of bearing responsibility for some of the crimes that led to mass graves being dug during the Bosnian conflict.

The site of the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the remains of 435 people were found. Photo: BIRN/Armin Graca. The site of a mass grave in the Cerska Valley north-west of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the remains of 150 people were found. Photo: BIRN/Armin Graca. Batajnica, on the outskirts of Belgrade, where the remains of 744 Kosovo Albanians were found buried at a Serbian police training centre. Photo: BIRN/Marko Risovic. A road leads to Crni Vrh, near the village of Snagovo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the remains of 629 bodies were exhumed from a mass grave. Photo: BIRN/Denis Ruvic. The Drina River in the Bosnian city of Visegrad, where many war victims' bodies were dumped. Photo: BIRN/Armin Graca. Aerial view of Jakarina Kosa, a secondary...