Kosovo authorities on Monday were investigating a potential second mass grave in the country’s north, days after excavations revealed at least seven bodies from a suspected wartime killing nearby.
The country’s acting president, Albulena Haxhiu, said that the potential mass burial site was found over the weekend and is also believed to hold victims of the 1990s Kosovo war.
“Suspicions of a second mass grave are a stark reminder of the crimes committed during the war and evidence that justice has not yet been fully served,” Haxhiu said in a Facebook post.
Police and prosecutors said in a statement that they were now seeking court permission to open the second dig site, just 10 kilometres (seven miles) from the current location, in the nearby village of Jabuka.
The 1998-1999 war between independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serbian armed forces killed around 13,000 people and left 4,000 missing.
Decades of work to uncover mass graves have found the remains of thousands, but 1,600 are still missing.
Interior minister Xhelal Svecla said excavation was continuing at the original location in the area of Zubin Potok, where officials believe as many as 23 people may be buried.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti visited the site on Saturday and said he believed those buried there had been “violently abducted, executed” in the spring of 1999.
Forensic teams confirmed the remains of seven people had been uncovered on Saturday, which Kurti earlier said he believed were “intellectuals from Mitrovica, doctors, professors and human rights activists” who had disappeared on April 19, 1999.
Prosecutors are yet to confirm the identities of those killed, or their connection to the Kosovo war, and have warmed the process could take months.
But police have also arrested three men from the local area in recent days on suspicion of war crimes, the prosecutor said.
Efforts to recover people who went missing during the war have been slow, as tensions between Belgrade — which doesn’t recognise Kosovo’s independence — and Pristina remain strained.
Despite both countries agreeing to a joint commission to accelerate the search for war missing, there has been little evidence of improved cooperation.
