Cyprus-Forum.com

[yialousa1971]

Associated Press, 01.05.11, 09:26 AM EST

Authorities searching for mass graves of Kurds who disappeared in the 1990s unearthed the bones of eight people in a field in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, a lawyer and reports said.

Kurdish activists claim a number of Kurds who went missing during the height of a conflict between Kurdish militants and Turkish security forces may have been killed and buried in mass graves.

Prosecutors ordered Wednesday's excavations in the mainly Kurdish Bitlis province after a tip from the families of nine Kurds who disappeared shortly after leaving their villages to join Kurdish insurgents, Dogan news agency reported.

Enis Gul, who heads the bar association in Bitlis, told NTV television that DNA tests would be conducted to try to identify the dead and determine whether the remains belong to the missing Kurds.

Gul said excavations at the site near a highway close to Mutki town could unearth more human remains.

Authorities sealed off the site and journalists were being kept away, Anatolia news agency said.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/01/ ... 38503.html