UNMIK/PR/877
Tuesday 26 November 2002

Transfer of mortal remains of first 8 victims from Petrovo Selo to Kosovo.

The transfer to Kosovo of the mortal remains of the first 8 victims exhumed from a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, Serbia took place earlier today, the Office on Missing Persons and Forensics (OMPF) announces. The victims died in the Izbice massacre in March 1999.

“The identification of the victims was made by OMPF-MPU using traditional methods after the exhibition of photographs of clothing and personal effects in Skenderaj on September 24th and 25th”, said Jose Pablo Baraybar, head of OMPF.

After the comparison between ante and post-mortem data, the files were submitted to the experts at the Forensic Institute in Nis who corroborated the identifications. More files are being compared by OMPF-MPU and it is expected that further identifications will be made.

The Office on Missing Persons and Forensics (OMPF) expects that the process of repatriation of mortal remains from Serbia will be expedited through the continued use of both traditional and DNA techniques for human identification