Dili – Civilian and military police have discovered another mass grave holding up to 10 bodies at a site on the outskirts of Dili, officials said Monday, as the Australian-led multi-national peacekeeping force spread into more devastated territory in the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi.

A senior civilian policeman working with the United Nations said relatives of the victims had led investigators to the site outside the capital on Sunday. "A joint investigation will be done between the military and civilian police," he said.

A spokesman for the International Force for East Timor (Interfet), Colonel Mark Kelly, said at the weekend that investigators had examined sites containing a total of 95 bodies since the force deployed on September 20 after weeks of militia violence and destruction in respponse to an overwhelming ote for independence from Indonesia.

Reports so far indicated up to 150 bodies would be found but some investigators refuse to rule out a bigger total when the estimated 250,000 East Timorese refugees return from West Timor and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people move back to their homes and were able to report other possible atrocities.

The peacekeepers have yet to find any evidence of large-scale atrocities in the 400-square kilometre enclave of Oecussi on the north coast of West Timor since they landed there last Friday.