Chairman of the Kosovo government’s commission on missing persons, Prenk Gjetaj, announced that excavations into a suspected mass grave site inside the compound of a mosque in the northern part of Mitrovica will get underway on 16 February. Gjetaj said the excavation works will be carried out in close cooperation with EULEX and relevant Kosovo institutions. EULEX confirmed that excavations will begin but did not give an exact date saying the site will be assessed in the near future.

President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, met today the chairman of the Kosovo Government’s Commission for Missing Persons, Prenk Gjetaj, and discussed the closing of the chapter on missing persons and the upcoming steps that need to be taken. In a press release issued by Thaci’s office, he is quoted as saying that the issue of the missing persons is humanitarian and that “politics in Serbia should be part of the solution not an obstacle”.

The Chairman of the Government Committee on Missing Persons, Prenke Gjetaj, said on Wednesday the forensic teams will begin excavating a suspected mass grave in Novi Pazar, on 23 and 24 April. According to Gjetaj, around 100 bodies of the Albanians killed during the conflict in Kosovo are suspected to have been buried in this mass grave. He also announced that Serbia has allowed the excavations at the site.