Uzice, September 6, 2001 (Beta) - Exhumations of bodies from refrigerated trucks which are thought to have been sunk in the Perucac storage reservoir on the river Drina in April 1999, began at the "Derventa" gravesite on September 6.

It is assumed that the bodies of 50-60 Kosovo Albanians were entombed at the site at that time.

According to witnesses, the truck eventually floated to the surface, at which point it was fired on with bazookas from the bank. The corpses were then collected from the lake and buried in a nearby riverbank.

A 20 member forensic team has been tapped to carry out the exhumation and recovery, the District Court in Uzice confirmed. Members of the OSCE Commission on Missing Persons and the International Red Cross have also announced their presence during the exhumations.

The expert team will be guided by head of the Institute of Pathology and Forensic Medicine at the Military Medical Academy (VMA) in Belgrade Zoran Stankovic.

Beta news agency has learned that during the course of the day, the team had already found parts of human bones.

The process is expected to last around 10 days, and early results of the investigation will shortly thereafter be presented to the public.

At the request of the District Public Prosecutor, District Court investigative judge Momcilo Krivokapic ordered the exhumation of the bodies at the gravesite, located at the mouth of the Derventa River into the Perucac artificial lake, five kilometres from the Bajina Basta hydroelectric power plant.

The investigation should yield further information on the "number of bodies, their gender, identity, cause and time of death, date of burial and the cause of death."