International Day of Missing Persons – region still looks for 10.167 persons (RTS)
International Day of Missing Persons is being marked in Serbia. As a consequence of the wars that happened in the region during the nineties 10.167 persons are still uncounted for. Out of this number more than 3.800 persons are of Serb nationality RTS reports today.
RTS added that the families of the missing persons would gather in Belgrade today and request that the truth about their beloved ones is found.
Graves of 1.998 persons are not known yet in Croatia, 1.653 persons are missing in Kosovo and Metohija, while 6.516 persons are missing in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Chairman of the Serbian Government Missing Persons Committee Veljko Odalovic told RTS this morning that the information they have at this moment are insufficient to find out what happened to these 10.167 persons. He underlined the request to open the archives of those who have them has been put forward.
“The archives are not only in Belgrade. The archives are in Sarajevo, Zagreb, Pristina, but also in NATO, KFOR contingent and OSCE. These are the archives that could help with the information related to the places of murders and places of burials, about the events that are important to us so this process can be intensified”.
Odalovic also underlined the problems with taking over the bodies of killed Serbs in Djakovica. Few days ago, the mortal remains of 7 kidnapped and murdered Serbs in Djakovica have not been handed over to the families.
“Although last year we found and spent a month in a location called “Bunker” and found the mortal remains there, identified the bodies, we did not manage to complete the handover process. The absolute priority must be families and their demands,” Odalovic said.
He added, he is deeply convinced the problem is not of administrative nature only.
“This is the zone of responsibility of Ramush Haradinaj and somebody would need to be held accountable for that, not only for the murder of three Serbian underage boys, father and mother from the same family and Petrovic couple, but also for all other crimes that were committed there. There are three more locations we are pointing at in Djakovica area,” Odalovic explained.
He said international factors were urged to react, however, no feedback was received yet, RTS reported.