31-MAR-2006
An estimated 10,000 people died in the Kosovo conflict. According the Red Cross 2,398 people, mostly ethnic Albanians are still missing.
31-MAR-2006
After the war, 836 corpses have been found on a police training ground outside Belgrade and in 2 other sites in Serbia. The dead were all trucked there from Kosovo in a systematic operation to conceal evidence of the murder of civilians.
31-MAR-2006
These bodies have been slowly sent back to Kosovo. The last ones arrived on June 2006. 7 years after the war. Serbia claimed the identification process was complicated.
31-MAR-2006
U.N. forensics experts say that despite post-mortems analyses conducted by Serbia, most bodies have been returned with cause of death recorded as "unknown". Subsequent examinations by U.N. experts have established that 65 percent died of gunshot wounds.
31-MAR-2006
These pictures have been taken in Merdare, a small Kosovo village bordering Serbia proper where the remains discovered in mass graves are returned. The trucks bringing back the body bags stopped there for a first ceremony.
31-MAR-2006
The members of victims' families put flowers around the forensic plastic sacks containing the remains, temporarily laid out under a tent.
31-MAR-2006
After the handover, the remains were transported to a UN-run morgue for forensic analysis, DNA identification and eventual return to their families.
31-MAR-2006
7 years after the conflict, the issue of missing bodies still jeopardizes the difficult reconciliation process between Serbians and Kosovo Albanians.
31-MAR-2006
"Cela ne pourra jamais etre raconte, car ceux qui assistent et survivent a de telles choses restent a jamais muets, et les morts, eux, ne peuvent de toute facon pas parler.
Ce sont des choses qui ne se disent pas, des choses qui s'oublient.
En effet, si elles ne s'oubliaient pas, comment pourraient-elles se repeter ?"
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Ivo Andric, Le pont sur la Drina