Diggers find 37 graves of unknown soldiers

  • 2005-07-11
RIGA 's A Latvian organization uniting World War II enthusiasts has found 37 graves of unknown soldiers this summer in different locations throughout the country and is working to identify them.

Talis Esmits, leader of the Legenda organization, said that 25 graves belonged to Soviet Army soldiers, and the organization had already identified 16 of them.

"Never before we have been so successful in reducing the number of unknown soldiers. This became possible due to better cooperation with the [Russian] archives in Podolsk. It turned out that field reports have all the details -- where a person died and why the body had to be left in the combat zone," said Esmits.

The organization will seek assistance of German authorities to try to identify the German soldiers buried in Latvia.