Thousands of bullet-riddled bodies from the victims of a protracted civil war have been discovered in Burundi.
The remains were found in six unmarked mass graves in the central part of the small East African nation, according to Reuters. The head of Burundi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, announced the discovery on Friday.
Ndayicariye said that investigators are using clothing, glasses, and rosaries found on the bodies to identify them. He said a total of 6,023 victims were found in the graves, along with thousands of bullets. The discovery was the largest since the country launched a nationwide excavation effort in January.
Similar to its neighbor Rwanda, which is nestled just to the north, Burundi has been rocked by past violence and is composed largely of people from the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. A civil war began in 1993 and lasted until 2005. An estimated 300,000 people were killed during the violence.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was started in 2014 to investigate the violence.
