Acting Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, paid tribute at the graves of the Bytyqi brothers – Ylli, Agron, and Mehmet – during his visit to New York.
Kurti emphasized that the ideals of the Bytyqi brothers, who were killed 26 years ago by Serbian forces, remain a guiding light for moving forward.
“By remembering and honoring the martyrs of the nation, in this case the Bytyqi brothers, we remind ourselves of the high price we paid for the freedom we enjoy and for the people we are. At the same time, their ideal serves as a guide for moving forward, to achieve what they wanted and for which they sacrificed themselves. Ylli, Agron, and Mehmet will always be remembered, and our generation has a duty to ensure that future generations continue to do the same,” Kurti said, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Bytyqi brothers were fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army, part of the “Atlantic” volunteer unit. On June 23, 1999, just days after Kosovo’s liberation, the three Albanian brothers undertook a humanitarian mission: escorting a Roma family from Prizren to the Serbian border near Kraljevo.
During this journey, they accidentally crossed into Serbian territory, where they were arrested by Serbian police and sentenced by the Misdemeanor Court in Prokuplje to 15 days in prison. At the end of their sentence, they were transferred to a Serbian police training base, executed with shots to the back of the head, and their bodies hidden.
Their remains were discovered in 2001 in a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, near the town of Kladovo, along with other Albanians killed by Serbian forces during the Kosovo war.
In October 2019 and again in July 2022, the US House of Representatives passed two resolutions calling on Serbia to take concrete action and cooperate with international justice to bring those responsible for the Bytyqi brothers’ murder to justice.
