During the search for the remains of 1999 war victims, nine sets of human remains have been found and exhumed in Kosovo in recent months, the head of the Kosovo government’s Missing Persons Commission, Kushtrim Gara confirmed in a statement for KoSSev. He announced further excavations in the coming days.
„During the last three months, at least six locations within the territory of the Republic of Kosovo have been processed, i.e. excavated. The remains of at least nine war victims were found and exhumed at these locations,“ Gara said in a written response to KoSSev, without specifying whether the found remains have been identified or whether DNA analysis was performed.
Out of a total of six locations chosen for excavation, four are located in the Muslim cemetery in North Mitrovica, Gara confirmed.
He stated that certain processed locations were treated in the sense of a detailed review of the information this Commission possesses jointly with representatives of international organizations that are part of this process, as well as during the meetings of the two Commissions.
At the invitation of the Kosovo delegation, as part of the Working Group on Missing Persons, the representatives of the delegation from Belgrade were also present, he said.
The head of the Missing Persons Commission announced further excavations on the territory of Kosovo, without revealing the exact locations.
According to Gara, the Kosovo Special Prosecutor’s Office has already issued orders, and excavations will be carried out at these locations in the coming days.
The President of the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia, Veljko Odalovic previously confirmed for KoSSev that some of the locations in Kosovo where excavations will be carried out were determined at the last meeting of the working groups. Odalovic also confirmed Gara’s allegations that the Pristina Commission is preparing to investigate individual locations.
He confirmed the allegations of his Belgrade counterpart, Veljko Odalovic, reiterating that remains – or bone fragments – were also found in the Kizevak quarry near Raska, which has been subjected to investigation since 2015.
This commission is currently staying in Raska at the invitation of the Serb delegation within the Working Group on Missing Persons.
The works on this location are currently suspended pending a court decision.
Gara stated that cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina on the issue of missing persons takes place through delegations within the Working Group on Missing Persons, which has been operating since 2004, as well as via direct cooperation as a commission within regional cooperation as per the Regional Framework Plan, that is – declarations on missing persons signed by the prime ministers of the countries of the region and the European Union, during the London Summit in July 2018.
„After finding the remains, we are waiting for a date to be determined by the Serbian institutions and a notification from the Serb delegation for the continuation of works, a continuation of excavations, exhumation of the remains, their identification, repatriation and return or delivery of the remains to the families of identified persons,“ Gara added.
According to Gara, it is necessary to intensify cooperation, especially in the exchange of information and providing answers to requests that have already been submitted.
He underlined that excavations must be carried out at „marked“ sites in Serbia, with special emphasis on sites in the Raska and Novi Pazar regions – not ruling out the possibility of returning to open sites investigated in the first post-war years, such as Batajnica and Petrovo Selo.
According to the register of the Kosovo government’s Missing Persons Commission, about 70% of missing persons’ cases have been resolved since the 1999 war, while 1,638 people are still listed as missing.
One of the points of the agreement recently signed in Washington, as well as the new phase of negotiations in Brussels, launched this summer, includes the issue of resolving the fate of missing persons. As Miroslav Lajcak, the EU special envoy for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, confirmed during his latest official visit to Pristina, the chapter of the future „comprehensive agreement on the normalization of relations“ on the missing has already been concluded.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
