May 27, 2009, Mrsici, Bosnia: A new mass grave containing dozens of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre has been discovered in eastern Bosnia, bringing a fresh reminder as advocates prepare to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the massacre this summer.

The grave was discovered in Mrsici village, 60 kilometers northeast of Sarajevo, according to Bosnia’s Missing Persons Commission. Exhumation was expected to continue for several days.

Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave, was designated a UN safe haven during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s. But a lightly-armed Dutch peacekeeping force capitulated to the Bosnian Serbs, who seized the town and murdered over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys over the age of 15. The women and children were bused out of Srebrenica to Muslim-controlled territory.

To date, the remains of more than 6,000 of the genocide victims have been exhumed from about 70 mass graves around Srebrenica, with more than 5,600 people identified by DNA analysis. About 2,900 massacre victims have been re-buried. Thousands of bodies and body parts have been exhumed from mass graves but not yet identified.

Each summer, thousands flock to Potocari, the scene of the 1995 massacre, to bury the remains of newly-identified victims. Two Advocacy Project partners in the Balkans, Bosnian Family (BOSFAM) and Women in Black-Serbia, participate in the commemoration each year.

BOSFAM has also produced a memorial quilt honoring victims of the Srebrenica massacre. The quilt was launched in 2007 and now comprises 85 total panels, each dedicated to an individual victim.