Russia confirms Tsar family remains found in Urals

MOSCOW, June 24 (Xinhua) -- A series of examinations have confirmed that bone fragments found near Yekaterinburg in the Urals last year belong to Russia's last Tsar family, an investigation committee official said Tuesday.

The bodies of a boy aged between 12 and 14, and a young woman between 17 and 19, supposedly Crown Prince Alexei and Grand Princess Maria Romanov, were burnt, said spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin.

Tsar Nicholas II's family were killed in 1918 in Yekaterinburg, 1,450 km east of Moscow, and the bodies were dumped in pits.

Remains believed to belong to the Tsar, his wife and three of his daughters were exhumed and reburied in 1998 in Russia's northern capital St. Petersburg.

But Crown Prince Alexei and Grand Princess Maria Romanov were not among those remains.