The soldiers suspected it was the scene of atrocities. Near a road leading through Koronica, three more mass graves were discovered. Residents said the graves hold as many as 150 bodies of men, women and children who were massacred by Serb forces. A hand and arm protruded from one of the graves and the top of a head stuck out from the earth. And in another town, journalists found a convoy of burned-out tractors and cars, and evidence of a mass grave nearby.
Survivors say Serb forces shot the fleeing villagers, and then set the convoy on fire.
These discoveries were not unexpected, yet still they were horrifying. They echoed an earlier report, a crime scene that was captured on videotape and transmitted around the world. Those images had horrified the western world and galvanized NATO at the beginning of the year. NATO's resolve to deal harshly with the latest crisis in the Balkans became strengthened after reports emerged in January of the massacre in the village of Racak. At least 45 people were slaughtered.