An association gathering families of Serb victims in Kosovo said it hoped that an investigation of a suspected mass grave will yield “concrete results.”
The Association of the Families of 1998-2000 Kosovo Victims warned at the same time that last year only nine people were identified from a long list of kidnapped Serbs, and this year none.
They hope that the probe announced on Monday by the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution and the EULEX Prosecution of a site in the village of Piskote “will give concrete results.”
“The families of Serb victims, as well as the families of all victims in the region must have an equal right to learn the truth,” a statement said, and noted that its members greeted the Prosecution’s announcement “with special attention and awakened hope.”
It is suspected that the site near Đakovica is a mass grave containing the remains of Serb civilians kidnapped in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 and murdered by the ethnic Albanian KLA.
“Given the fact that, as we learned, the EULEX Prosecution issued an order to carry out exhumations, autopsies and identification of possible human remains from a potential mass grave, the families of the victims from Kosovo and Metohija anxiously await the news,” the statement said.
The Association recalled that 16 years have passed since the first organized kidnappings of Serbs and non-Albanians in Kosovo started taking place.
“Despite the fact that none of the families of the 530 kidnapped persons whose fate in unknown want to accept the probable fact that their loved ones are no longer among the living, they are also aware that , no matter how painful the truth, the uncertainty and hopelessness are more difficult and unbearable,” the statement, signed by the President of the Association Nataša Šćepanović, concluded.
