On June 22, 1998, on the way to their job, nine workers of the mine “Belacevac” of Obilic thermal power plant – Dusan, Pero and Zoran Adjancic, Mirko Buha, Dragan Vukmirovic, Filip Gojkovic, Miroslav Trifunovic, Srboljub Savic and Bozidar Lempic were kidnapped.
Associations dealing with the issue of the missing say that this was the first mass kidnapping of Serbs in Kosovo. The investigation was conducted, then interrupted, and the fate of these workers is still unknown. The day of their kidnapping was marked in Belgrade, but also in the north Mitrovica by a debate “Twenty years of struggle and search for truth and justice,” the portal Kossev reports.
The tribune was organized by the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Kosovo and Metohija.
“Twenty years lasts our painful struggle for truth and justice. We know very well how important this issue is, we are witnessing that many cases are linked to a policy of conditioning, secrecy and manipulation,” says the president of this association, Verica Tomanovic.
She reminds that the efforts of families of missing miners to come to the truth have remained without results.
EULEX suspended further investigation, excavations were interrupted, and perpetrators were not found. Families are still waiting for the truth, and the hope that the remains will be found slowly is disappearing, she adds.
The head of the Commission for Missing Persons Department, Ljiljana Krstic, states that the Commission for Missing Persons launched a search in the area of Zilivode – Belacevac in July 2008:
“There was a reasonable suspicion that there were bodies of about 25 victims, 3 and a half, 4 years have been worked but unfortunately we did not get the result.”
However, Krstic says that results were obtained in other cases, and through the work of the Working Group on Missing Persons chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross, within which a team was formed composed of one representative of Belgrade, Pristina, the International Committee of the Red Cross and EULEX:
“From April 16 to May 16 the works were on the location in Djakovica, where there is a reasonable suspicion that the people of Serbian and non-Albanian nationalities were buried. Exhumation was done, samples were taken for DNA analysis, after the results, the commission will inform the families and perform further handover,” reports the portal.
