Experts have started excavating a mass grave in Serbia believed to contain at least 250 bodies of ethnic Albanians who were killed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

The Serbian government official dealing with the wartime missing, Veljko Odalovic, said on Wednesday that the excavation in the village of Rudnica, near Serbia's border with Kosovo, will take about 60 days.

A house had to be torn down before the work could begin. A nearby site was excavated earlier but no bodies were found.

International peacekeepers believe Serbs hid the grave's real location.

Some 10,000 people were killed during the conflict between Serbian security troops and Kosovo separatists and hundreds of bodies were transferred to central Serbia to hide evidence of atrocities.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008.