The head of Serbia’s Commission for Missing Persons, Veljko Odalović, and the representative for missing persons on Kosovo’s negotiating team at the EU-mediated talks with Serbia, Ibrahim Makolli, told the media that they are waiting for the final report after the DNA analysis for the seven remains found in the past three weeks. Forensic archeologists had resumed their work on May 5 after being forced to stop because of the pandemic and the winter weather.

They added that the bodily remains of two victims had already been found and identified a few months ago. The remains of a third victim had DNA samples matching remains that were previously found in the mass grave in Rudnica, the nearby quarry discovered in 2014, meaning the person’s remains were found in two seperate graves.

“This mass grave [Kiževak] is connected directly to the massacres that took place in the region of Drenica,” Makolli said.

One crime scene out of many

Makolli said that they believe that remains found in Kiževak belong to the victims killed in the Rezallë massacre, a village in Skenderaj in the Drenica region on April 5, 1999, where 42 Albanian civilians were killed. According to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) the crime in Rezallë was committed during an operation undertaken by the Yugoslav Army and Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) and the human remains of 28 victims from the village were exhumed in Rudnica.

Reports that document war crimes in Kosovo also note that all remains of victims found in the Rudnica mass grave besides Rezallë massacre, belong to the victims of Çikatovё e Vjetёr, Zabel i Ulët and Gllanasellë massacres, all villages in the Drenica region.

Between January 1998 and December 1999, more than 13,000 people were killed or went missing during the war in Kosovo and its immediate aftermath. Over 10,000 were civilians. The HLC estimates that 8,693 Albanians, 1,196 Serbs, 445 Roma and other minorities were killed in Kosovo. At the end of the war it was estimated that there were 5,500-6,000 missing people, although that number has been reduced over the years, largely due to the steady discovery of mass graves. Today 1,600 people are still missing: Over 1000 Albanians and over 400 Serbs, Roma and other minority communities’ members.

The closure of Kiževak

With nine remains confirmed at Kiževak, the mass grave investigation ends.

Dafina Halili

The closure of Kiževak

With nine remains confirmed at Kiževak, the mass grave investigation ends.

Dafina Halili