Where am I?
The Search for the Missing
Since the cessation of war in 1995, dozens of mass graves have been found throughout Bosnia, many in the vicinity of Prijedor. Additional grave sites are uncovered every year.
Many of these graves are secondary graves—that is, graves that Serbs moved to new sites in their efforts to hide evidence. The Kevljani mass gravesite, located a few miles outside of Prijedor, is an example. Excavated in the summer of 2004, it yielded the remains of 456 people. Documents found with the remains indicated that they had died in Keraterm and Omarska.
DNA testing is aiding in the identification of remains. Since 2000, the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has collected more than 75,000 blood samples from surviving family members, many in St. Louis. These samples enable forensic experts to match family DNA to the DNA found in exhumed remains. On August 27, 2007, the ICMP announced that it had made its 10,000 identification based on a familial DNA match.
The ICMP estimates that 13,000 victims of the Bosnian war and genocide are still unaccounted for. Nearly 1000 of them are from the vicinity of Prijedor.