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As many as 200 found buried in Algeria

RELIZANE, Algeria, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A human rights group Sunday said it had uncovered a mass grave in western Algeria containing as many as 200 bodies.

The Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights secretly opened the mass grave in Relizane after residents alerted them to the site, the BBC reported.

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One of the bodies was identified through clothing as a man who disappeared in 1996, the group said. It was the only identification among an estimated 7,000 Algerians who were arrested and never seen again over the past decade.

Despite regular demonstrations in Algiers by the mothers of the missing, the Algerian Government has yet to act on a single case, the BBC said.

The majority of the disappearances took place in the mid-1990s, which was the peak of the armed conflict between the government and Islamic opponents.

Human rights groups charge both sides committed atrocities against civilians, including kidnappings and mass killings.

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