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A long goodbye: Bosnians come to see family members excavated from newly discovered mass grave

Associated Press
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Bosnian woman Denisa Hegic reacts as she enters at the Sejkovaca identification center, near the Bosnian town of Sanski Most, 260 kilometers (162 miles) northwest of Sarajevo ,on Wednesday, April 16, 2014. Denisa Hegic was eight when Serb soldiers stormed her house and killed her entire family at the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war. An aunt pulled her away from her mother's bloody body and they tried to run away, were caught but escaped again. After 22 years, Hegic reunited with her family on Wednesday at the freezing mortuary where the remains of hundreds of Muslim Bosniaks killed during the Bosnain Serb ethnic killings campaign are stored after they were excavated from Bosnia's biggest mass grave. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) (The Associated Press)

Bosnian woman Denisa Hegic hugs her husband as she enters at the Sejkovaca identification center, near the Bosnian town of Sanski Most, 260 kilometers (162 miles) northwest of Sarajevo ,on Wednesday, April 16, 2014. Denisa Hegic was eight when Serb soldiers stormed her house and killed her entire family at the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war. An aunt pulled her away from her mother's bloody body and they tried to run away, were caught but escaped again. After 22 years, Hegic reunited with her family on Wednesday at the freezing mortuary where the remains of hundreds of Muslim Bosniaks killed during the Bosnain Serb ethnic killings campaign are stored after they were excavated from Bosnia's biggest mass grave.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) (The Associated Press)

Bosnian woman Denisa Hegic reacts as she enters at the Sejkovaca identification center, near the Bosnian town of Sanski Most, 260 kilometers (162 miles) northwest of Sarajevo ,on Wednesday, April 16, 2014. Denisa Hegic was eight when Serb soldiers stormed her house and killed her entire family at the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war. An aunt pulled her away from her mother's bloody body and they tried to run away, were caught but escaped again. After 22 years, Hegic reunited with her family on Wednesday at the freezing mortuary where the remains of hundreds of Muslim Bosniaks killed during the Bosnain Serb ethnic killings campaign are stored after they were excavated from Bosnia's biggest mass grave.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) (The Associated Press)

Family members of victims from Bosnia's 1992-1995 war are beginning to travel to northwestern Bosnia to view the remains of corpses meticulously pulled from the earth and identified through DNA analysis.

Hundreds of families are expected to make the sad pilgrimage to see bodies excavated from the mass grave at Tomasica, which is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of Sarajevo.

So far, 430 victims were found in the Tomasica grave, a vast pit 10 meters (about 30 feet) deep and covering 5,000 square meters (54,000 square feet).

The pit contains victims of Bosnian Serb military units who killed Muslim Bosniaks and Roman Catholic Croats in hopes of creating an ethnically pure region.

Viewings of the bodies began Wednesday.