(17 Aug 2005)
Cancari, (200 northeast of Sarajevo), Bosnia-Herzegovina - 16 August 2005
1. Wide pan of mass grave site
2. Experts at the grave site
3. Tent set up at grave site
4. Prof John Hunter presenting results of study
5. Various of satellite images map
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Professor John Hunter, University of Birmingham "We have a specific..."
7. Mass grave site
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jon Sterenberg, Chief of ICMP Exhumation Division
9. Mass grave site
10. Local people watching
SUGGESTED LEAD-IN:
New satellite imaging techniques are being used in Bosnia to map mass graves.
The first results were revealed at a mass grave in eastern Bosnia this week (Tuesday 16 August) by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the Bosnia-based agency dealing with missing persons and DNA identification.
VOICE-OVER:
Near the village Cancari in eastern Bosnia lies one of the country's known but as yet unexcavated mass graves.
It is one of 16 sites studied by a team of team of satellite imagery experts, forensic archaeologists and geology experts.
Here they detected geographic patterns associated with mass graves that will help find hidden graves in the future.
The study has brought together technologies that have never been used together before.
One of those technologies is satellite imagery and spectral analysis which has recently been used to locate mass graves in Iraq.
It measures changes in the composition of the ground and vegetation.
SOUNDBITE (English)
"We have a specific problem here in that we are ten years on. So we have got to see what will have changed in ten years, predict what is going to happen, predict what the vegetation going to be like ten years after the event. We identify what it is, we identify the general locations we are looking for but the satellite images and then look for the spectral observables which show you where these changes of vegetation are."
SUPER CAPTION: Professor John Hunter, University of Birmingham
Until now, finding mass graves has proved to be a difficult task.
SOUNDBITE (English)
"The idea behind using the satellite imagery is to look at a broader, bigger are and try and narrow it down to a possible site. So we are using witness statements, if any exist, and a time period, between so and so year and so and so year, and an approximate number of victims to try and narrow it down."
SUPER CAPTION: Jon Sterenberg, Chief of ICMP Exhumation Division
The ICMP hopes that the new techniques will not only help find mass graves, but make it harder to hide mass graves in the future.
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