Mostar -- Leaders of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro, conferred in Mostar on Friday where they will sign a declaration on missing persons.
The document aims to encourage the search for people missing in the wars both in the Balkan region and elsewhere in the world.
The Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) presented on Tuesday to the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution the list of demands for legal actions to be taken against ethnic Albanian criminals they suspect of being responsible for the deaths and disappearances of their loved ones.
Members of the association staged a protest outside the Special War Crimes Court in Belgrade, and the representative of the families of persons kidnapped and gone missing in KiM Snezana Brankovic read out their message to the Special Prosecutor's Office.
BELGRADE -- Serbia is absolutely committed to finding a solution to the missing persons' issue and not a single body or individual has ever done anything to prevent it.
This is what President of the Commission on Missing Persons Veljko Odalović told Tanjug ahead of the conference on the matter due to take place in Mostar on Friday.
Director of Forensic Department, Arsim Gerxhaliu has withdrawn from Kosovo team that is dealing with exhumations of Rudnica, Municipality of Rashka.
Gerxhaliu has withdrawn with the reason that he has been prevented doing his job.
Gerxhaliu wrote in Facebook that he cannot do this job anymore. “For 15 years volunteering… withstand…, but interfering in my profession, I cannot stand it anymore,” wrote Gerxhaliu in Facebook.
Excavations in search of mortal remains have recommenced at the mass grave in Rudnica, Serbia.
Head of the Kosovo Government’s Commission for Missing Persons, Prenk Gjetaj, confirmed the news to KTV. According to Gjetaj, the Kosovo side is prepared and ready to work on determining the fate of the missing persons.
The decision to resume excavations at the site came after an agreement was reached last week between the Pristina and Belgrade teams.
Excavations in Rudnica of Raska, stopped by the Serbian side on 3 July, will resume this Thursday at 12:00. The news was confirmed by the head of the Kosovo Government’s commission on missing persons, Prenk Gjetaj.
In an interview, Gjetaj also spoke about the anticipated agreement with the Serbian side regarding handing over of mortal remains. It is not yet certain whether the agreement will be reached. Gjetaj said that the Kosovo side is ready to work towards determining the fate of missing persons.
Forensic experts are hunting for evidence at a grave site in the Kosovo village of Rezalle, where 42 Albanians were allegedly killed by Serbian forces in April 1999.
Prenk Gjetaj, the chief of Kosovo’s missing persons commission, told BIRN that the search in the village of Rezalle in the Skenderaj/Srbice municipality of northern Kosovo was launched in the hope of finding evidence that will help identify bodies which later reburied in a hidden location in Serbia.
“So far 50 bodies have been discovered at the mass grave in Raska. Excavations are ongoing. There are other mass graves in Serbia, and we want the international community to pressure Serbia into revealing the locations,” Prenk Gjetaj, chairman of the Kosovo government’s missing persons committee, said in today’s meeting with a delegation of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Gjetaj said dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade failed to achieve satisfactory results on the issue of missing persons.
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga met today with a delegation of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, led by Ariel Dulitzky. The delegation is visiting Kosovo and the Balkans on a fact-finding mission related to missing persons. Jahjaga said the fate of over 1,700 missing persons needs to be resolved as quickly as possible, as this would help heal a grave wound in society and help families of missing persons to find peace. Jahjaga said this would also help foster peace and stability in the Balkans and create conditions for trust and reconciliation.
Association of Relatives of the victims in Kosovo since 1998 warned that if Ramush Haradinaj is president of the new Kosovo government, the process of finding out the truth about the fate of more than 520 kidnapped Serbs will stop and the prosecution of war crimes will be completely halted.
The press release of the association stated that the life and safety of Kosovo Serbs probably will not be easier than it is today, and "certainly there will be no return of displaced Serbs to their ancestral homes."