A mass grave with the remains of a suspected 1,000-plus Jewish people slain by the Nazis has been found in Belarus.
Bones of men, women and children with gunshot wounds to their skulls have been located at a building site in the city of Brest on the Polish border.
The skeletons of around 600 have been found so far, with Belarus soldiers - deployed to undertake the macabre work - now locating the remains of some 40 people each day in the sinister burial place.
City official Anna Kondak said: 'We expect the number of victims to go over 1,000.'
The remains of at least 1,000 suspected Jewish victims of the Holocaust have been discovered close to the site of a notorious Nazi ghetto at Brest where they were executed in 1942
Documentary footage shows the appalling conditions Jews were kept in under Nazi guard at the Brest ghetto between 1941 and 1942
Members of the excavation team in Brest, Belarus, close to the Polish border examine remains at the mass grave
The mass grave was discovered as excavations were being carried out for a new luxury residential development
The dead are believed to have been Holocaust victims of the Nazis from the Second World War, say officials.
The victims were from the Brest Jewish ghetto where up to 28,000 lived in 1941-42, it is understood.
Some 17,000 people are known to have been shot in October 1942 near Bronnaya Gora railway station, while thousands more were also presumed to have been slaughtered.
Historic accounts say victims were ordered by Hitler's forces to strip naked before being shot.
The recent discovery of human remains came during excavations for a new luxury residential development and a shopping mall, said city officials.
After being held at the ghetto some 17,000 prisoners were taken out and shot by the Nazis near Bronnaya Gora railway station
Residents of the Brest ghetto can be seen with the Star of David emblazoned over their clothes in a deplorable mark of their difference to their Nazi rulers
A computer generated depiction of plans for the new luxury development which is to be built over the site of the mass grave
Belorussian soldiers sweep away dirt as they painstakingly carry out work on the mass grave
The building work has been suspended while the remains of the mass murder victims are
