Serbs Deny Reports of Ethnic Mass Graves in Kosovo
Serbian authorities Wednesday displayed what they said were the graves of 40 separatist guerrillas and sharply denied reports of an ethnic massacre.
Reporters and Western officials rushed to the western Kosovo town of Orahovac after reports in Austrian, German and Swedish newspapers of a mass grave of more than 500 ethnic Albanians, mostly children.
They were shown a plowed dump, putrid with the smell of decaying bodies, and dotted with markers over what police said were remains of “terrorists,” their name for Kosovo Liberation Army fighters.
“This is not a mass grave. These are the bodies of terrorists, properly buried in accordance with the law at the [Muslim] cemetery in Orahovac,” Police Col. Bozidar Filic said.
European Union observers had seen single graves and could not confirm the reports of mass graves.
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