22 Years Later, Peci Repeats Claims That Fueled March 2004 Violence

Faton Peci stated that “with great pain we remember their barbaric drowning by Serbian criminal gangs, which touched the hearts of all Albanians,” marking the anniversary of the March 2004 events in Kosovo.

Together with Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla, Peci visited the graves of three Albanian boys who drowned in the village of Çabër/Čabra, in the municipality of Zubin Potok/Zubin Potok, on March 16, 2004—an event that preceded what Serbs refer to as a “pogrom” and Albanians as “unrest.”

The anniversary marks 22 years since the largest outbreak of ethnic violence in Kosovo/Kosovo after the arrival of international forces. According to the Humanitarian Law Center, the violence that followed resulted in the destruction of hundreds of Serbian homes and religious sites, and the displacement of more than 4,000 Serbs, mostly from southern Kosovo/Kosovo. Tens of thousands of protesters participated in unrest across Kosovo within 48 hours.

Initial reports indicated that eight Serbs and eleven Albanians were killed, while later data confirmed a total of 23 victims. Hundreds were injured, including civilians and members of international missions such as KFOR.

The unrest was triggered by early media reports claiming that Serbian individuals were responsible for the drowning of the Albanian boys in the Ibar river—claims that were later not substantiated by investigations. International findings concluded that evidence did not support allegations of a criminal act.

Despite these conclusions, Peci reiterated that “organized Serbian groups interrupted the childhood of the boys,” arguing that the event shocked Kosovo/Kosovo and led citizens to protest in search of justice. However, he did not mention the scale or nature of the subsequent violence.

Kosovo Interior Ministry: Groups of Young Serbs Chased Three Albanian Boys Before Drowning

Reports by organizations such as the OSCE (in Vienna) and Human Rights Watch have previously highlighted the role of sensationalist and unverified media reporting in fueling the violence, emphasizing its ethnic dimension and the impact of inflammatory narratives.

This report primarily describes and summarizes the severe consequences for the non-Albanian civilian population, particularly Serbs, and highlights the devastating failure of international forces and police to protect civilians. Additionally, the organization’s experts examined the role of media reporting in these events.

“The interpretation that the boys were chased in the river by Serbs came from other sources, such as Halit Berani, a Mitrovica-based ethnic Albanian human rights activist. Such subtleties didn’t matter to the private and public state-funded media, who began broadcasting and printing unequivocal reports that the ethnic Albanian boys had been chased into the river by Serbs.

Moderating voices, such as the UNMIK spokesperson Tracy Becker, who warned that an ethnic motivation for the incident had not been established, received almost no airtime, while ‘experts’ who denounced the Serb ‘bandits’ were given unfettered and unchallenged access.

For example, Halit Berani, the chairman of the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Mitrovica-an ethnic Albanian human rights group with a strongly nationalist agenda-was given more than 4 minutes of the RTK news broadcast, compared to the 12 seconds given to the moderate UNMIK spokesperson. Berani, who had not witnessed the incident, told the audience:

‘Today around 16:00 in the village of Cabrё (Cabra in Serbian), Zubin Potok municipality, while six children from the above mentioned village were playing, a group of Serb bandits attacked these children, the Serb bandits also had a dog, and [were] swearing at their Albanian mothers, they forced the Albanian children to run away. Two of them managed to hide in the roots of the willow trees by the river Lumebardh (Ibar river in Serbian), whereas the other four fell into the river. It is known that the Lumebardh river, apart from being very deep, has very cold water and is fast-moving. Most probably, the children couldn’t swim well. There is no information about the fate of three of them, whereas one survived after making it to the other side of the river.

We are used to these Serb bandits. We think that it is in revenge for what happened in Caglavica [i.e. shooting of Serb], the case that showed what the Serbs are willing to do when the situation is getting calm in Kosova.’

The sensational reporting on the Serb ‘bandits’ drowning young Albanian children set off a firestorm of protests and violence across Kosovo. However, while the drowning of the three children was a tragedy, a thorough investigation by the United Nations and a respected ethnic Albanian judge from Kosovo casts serious doubt on the allegations of Serb complicity in the drownings, citing inconsistencies in the accounts given by the surviving boy, and a lack of corroboration of the boy’s account by the two other surviving children and an elderly Serb who was working in the area. The U.N. investigative team did a thorough search of the area where the drownings took place, and could not find any Serbs who fitted the description given by the surviving boy.”

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