Kosovo says remains of at least 23 found in grave search

Kosovo authorities said on August 19 that forensic teams had found skeletal remains suspected to belong to at least 23 people in three potential mass graves in the north of the country.

Prosecutors, police and forensic investigators said full identification would be made after forensic examinations and other procedures. Prosecutors said the remains had been sent for DNA testing and warned that the process could take months.

Excavations began two weeks earlier in the Zubin Potok area as officials searched for ethnic Albanian victims still listed as missing from the conflicts of the 1990s.

Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti said while digging was continuing that the remains most likely belonged to 23 Albanians who had been violently abducted in Mitrovica and executed in spring 1999.

Prosecutors said police had arrested three local men in recent days on suspicion of war crimes. They said the men were being investigated in connection with the case on suspicion of war crimes against the civilian population.

The 1998-1999 war between independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serbian armed forces killed around 13,000 people and left 4,000 missing. Authorities have found the remains of thousands of people in decades of mass grave searches, while 1,600 remain unaccounted for.