Kosovo authorities say they have started digging next to a collapsed mine shaft searching for the bodies of more than 20 Serb civilians.

They are believed to have been killed by ethnic Albanian rebels in 1998. Arsim Gerxhaliu, Kosovo's top forensics official, said the site was unstable.

"Some Serbian bodies have been buried during the war - this is all we know. Our job is to prove and to work on this information and to (find) if there is something inside or not" Arsim Gerxhaliu said.

The Serbian War Crime Prosecution found out, as part of an investigation against a former KLA commander Fatmir Ljimaj, that there was a potential mass grave in the village of Klecka in Kosmet containing bodies of killed Serbs, Prosecution spokesperson Bruno Vekarić announced.

He told BETA that the investigation had shown that there was a crematorium in Klecka where KLA members burnt Serbs, but also Albanians who were not loyal to that paramilitary formation.

The Prosecution has been conducting an investigation against Ljimaj and another 28 members of the KLA since April 2009, as they are suspected of having committed many war crimes against Serbs in Klecka.

At the site of the Belaćevac mine there are bodies of 26 Kosmet Serbs and also at another two locations, the Livacko jezero lake and Kosare, there are bodies of Serbs killed in conflicts in 1998-2000.

The Serbian Prosecution is resolute to shed light on the fate of all the missing persons in wars in former Yugoslavia, regardless of their nationality or confession, said Vekaric.

EULEX experts, forensic experts and members of Kosovo security forces and police have started marking the Ziline vode site in central Kosmet, believed to contain the bodies of 26 killed Serbs, including nine miners kidnapped in 1998.

Representatives of the Serbian Commission for Missing Persons are also taking part in the search of the site. Serbia has been requesting a search of that site and also of the Livocko jezero lake near Gnjilane and Kosar, in Kosmet, for a long time.

Those sites are suspected of containing the mortal remains of Kosmet Serbs and other non-Albanians killed during conflicts in Kosmet. There are still 538 Serbs and other non-Albanians that went missing in Kosmet.