Pictures of mass burial released

The US has, for the first time, released aerial photographs apparently showing the mass burial of Muslim men from Srebrenica who were executed by Bosnian Serbs after the fall of the enclave in July 1995.

Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the United Nations, visited the site at a farm in eastern Bosnia yesterday, then issued photographs to journalists in Sarajevo.

"There is evidence that this is a place where there was systematic murdering of large numbers of people - around 1,000," Ms Albright said after her visit to Branjevo farm.

Some evidence for the massacre has come from Serbs who admitted their involvement. They say Muslims were rounded up in Potocari, where Dutch UN troops in Srebrenica were based, then taken by bus north to the site at Branjevo. There, unarmed and defenceless, the men were led out, 10 at a time, and shot.

The two photos, before and after, show an ordinary ploughed field at Branjevo farm on 5 July; on 17 July, a week after the fall of Srebrenica, the field shows the tracks of heavy vehicles, an excavator at work, a mound of earth, and a large number of objects identified by US officials as bodies.

t The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal yesterday issued its first indictments for war crimes allegedly committed against Serbs. Three of those indicted are Bosnian Muslims.