ARMED FORCES OF BIH ASSIST THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF BIH WITH EXHUMATIONS AT TOMAŠICA AND BUĆA POTOK LANDFILL. PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE OF BIH EXPRESSES ITS GRATITUDE TO THE PRESIDENCY FOR ITS UNDERSTANDING AND URGENT ACTION

The Prosecutor's Office of BiH has intensified activities and ensured strengthening of technical and human resources for the exhumations carried out at the localities of Tomašica near Prijedor and landfill in the Sarajevo settlement of Buća Potok.

The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina passed a decision on the deployment of machinery of the AF BiH aiming to accelerate exhumations. The Prosecutor's Office of BiH hereby expresses its gratitude for the understanding and assistance in this very important segment of its work, which is extremely important for the families of war crimes victims.

The above-mentioned machinery owned by the AF BiH will significantly expedite the exhumation efforts.

The Prosecutor's Office of BiH shall, pursuant to the decision of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the involvement of the AF BiH, strive to sign a protocol on cooperation and engagement of the armed forces in other exhumation cases, which will certainly contribute to a faster and more efficient search for missing persons.

This will provide for a more rational use of resources hence significant funds will be saved in the budget of BiH.

Use of modern machinery owned by the AF BiH will certainly expedite the technical process of exhumations, which is particularly in the interest of the families of the victims.

Deployment of additional large excavators, trucks and generators is planned at the site of Tomašica, and the plan for the location of Buća Potok is to add another big excavator and a truck to the existing machinery for the purpose of removal of large amounts of soil.

An X-ray will soon be put to use at the site of Tomašica to allow for faster inspection of the recovered bodies in order to find the remains of rifle grain and metal objects used in the killings of war crimes victims that will be used as evidence in war crimes cases.

At this point the ground was excavated to a depth of about 27 meters at the site of Buća Potok and efforts are continuing intensively aiming for a depth of 30-35 meters at which, according to current information, the remains of Serb victims from the area of Sarajevo could be located.

At the site of Buća Potok excavations are carried out at another four additional locations, which are, according to satellite imagery, likely to also contain the bodies of victims.

Once again we would like to thank the AF BiH for their understanding, urgent action and the meeting organized per request of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH.

The Prosecutor's Office of BiH, together with all other institutions involved in the process of exhumation, continues with intense activities on tracing  and identifying the war crimes victims as it is one of the priorities of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and was recognized as a positive step by the European Commission in its report.