Srebrenica remains symbol of martyrdom and division

By Daria Sito-Sucic

LUKAVAC, Bosnia (Reuters) - Three sets of bones are neatly displayed next to each other in aluminium cases in a basement in northeast Bosnia: they are three of four brothers killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The two older brothers were identified through DNA from their children, but it is not known which of the two younger brothers is the third set of remains. They had no children and DNA analysis does not distinguish between siblings.

The bones will stay in the cases in the Lukavac Re-Association Centre, about an hour's drive from Srebrenica, until the fourth body is discovered.

Their family wants all to be buried together in the Potocari memorial near Srebrenica, the final resting place for the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males killed by Bosnian Serbs in one week in the last months of the 1992-95 war.

Most of them will have travelled a long way before making it to Potocari. The Serbs buried the victims, then dug them out with bulldozers and transferred them elsewhere to hide the crime. Dozens of such graves are still being excavated today.

"One person may be found in maybe seven different grave sites," said Kerry-Ann Martin, senior forensic anthropologist at the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP).

Her colleague slowly removes human bones from a plastic bag, detaches smaller bones from big ones and carefully washes them. Men's shirts, ragged and washed out, hang on a plastic drier.

"We try to piece them together and make them as complete as possible before they go for burial to their families," Martin said.