Russian forensic experts said on Friday they may have found the remains of two children of the last Tsar whose bodies have been missing since a Bolshevik firing squad executed Russia's royal family in 1918.
Examination of bones discovered near to the site where the rest of the family were found suggests they belong to Tsar Nicholas II's 13-year-old heir, Prince Alexei, and his daughter Maria, the scientists said. DNA testing still needs to be done to confirm the find.
"It is most likely that this second burial place is linked to the first one. Everyone knows who they belong to," said Sergei Pogorelov, a historian with the local administration in the Sverdlovsk region.
Bolshevik revolutionaries shot the royal family in the basement of a merchant's house in the city of Yekaterinburg, 1,450 km (900 miles) east of Moscow. Attempts were made to destroy the bodies, then they were dumped into pits.