World War II mass grave found in northern Slovenia

Prevalje - Rumours have circulated in Slovenia for years of a mass slaughter that took place at the end of WWII in Prevalje forest in the north of the country. Now the finding of another mass grave in the area provides more information on these much denied claims.

The mass grave was uncovered last week after rain and landslides in the region caused some bones to be exposed and then investigators moved into the area. The discovery is thought to contain around 700 bodies and are possibly those of Nazi collaborators who were killed by communist backed anti-fascists, who killed many Nazi collaborators after the war, unfortunately many innocent civilians also died in the killings. The grave is thought to be about 20 metres long by 3 metres wide and investigators say that indications are that the bodies have their hands tied behind their backs. Some of the victims are thought to have been hacked to death while others were shot. Exhumations will begin once a prosecutor launches an official investigation. A government official said that the shoes found in the grave indicated that the dead were civilians. It's thought that rumours of the killings began years ago after a young boy said that he witnessed the killings while hiding behind a tree. In recent years other mass grave have been found in the area despite the former Yugoslav government denying that the killings had ever happened. In 1999, as work began on building a new road in Maribor in north east Slovenia, experts found a mass grave that contained about 1,000 bodies and, more recently, in 2003 in eastern Slovenia a farmer uncovered remains. Local villagers there claimed that thousands of civilians and Nazi soldiers were killed and buried in the region.