Mobile autopsy teams in the investigation of war crimes in Kosovo 1999

On request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Danish-Swedish forensic teams worked in Kosovo during the summ er and the fall of 1999. The teams, worked mainly as "mobile teams" at site s with few graves. Only two larger sites were examined. Most of the bodies were buried separately. A few "multiple burial" graves were examined, but n o mass graves were encountered. The main purpose of the autopsies was to es tablish the cause and manner of death, Identification was of less importanc e., but a majority of the bodies had been identified prior to the autopsy. A total of 308 bodies, mainly males, were examined. The age varied greatly with a mean age of 47 years. The most common cause of death was gun shot wo unds and the most common manner of death was homicide.