The news was shared by local media in Drenas, stating that he had been battling a serious illness.
He was a witness to the massacre of the Deliaj family, a tragedy that claimed the lives of five members of his family.
The Abria Massacre, which occurred in 1999, is one of the most tragic events of the Kosovo War. It took place during the period when Serbian forces were committing various crimes against Albanian civilians in Kosovo, following the beginning of NATO bombings. Abria is a small village in the Drenas municipality, where a group of Serbian military personnel, along with paramilitaries, carried out an unimaginable massacre against Albanian civilians.
One of the most well-known incidents was the massacre of the Deliaj family. Five members of this family, including women and children, were brutally killed by Serbian forces. They were just a few of the many victims of this horrific crime, with many others, including women and children, killed or disappeared under horrific conditions.
At the time of the massacre, Serbian forces were using violent tactics to terrorize and displace the Albanian population from towns and villages in Kosovo. They carried out mass roundups and used violence to suppress any form of resistance. Many innocent Albanians were massacred, while others were forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in other areas, often facing dire conditions.
After the war, many survivors of the Abria massacre, including Bashkim Deliu, provided testimonies about this tragic event. They spoke of the brutality they endured, the loss of loved ones, and the trauma they still carry after so many years. This massacre, like many others during the Kosovo War, remains a painful reminder of the terror and violence that the Albanians of Kosovo experienced in 1999.
