Kushtrim Gara from the Kosovo Government Commission for Missing Persons stated that they expect to have a date for starting the excavation or assessment of the location by mid-September.
The waste dump near the village of Kozhle in southwestern Serbia is one of the locations that, according to Kosovo authorities, may conceal crimes committed by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo during the 1998/99 war.
The Serbian Commission for Missing Persons confirms to Radio Free Europe that preparations have begun for site clearance and the construction of an access road, after which the search of the “Gollo Bërdo” dump is planned.
The excavations will be conducted at Kosovo’s request, which has informed the Serbian side about the possibility that the site may contain the remains of Albanian civilians who have been missing for over two decades. Gara mentioned to Radio Free Europe that information about this location has been obtained from various witnesses, and preparations on the ground began on August 26.
The site was also visited at the end of August by representatives of the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), along with officials from Kosovo and Serbia.
“This activity was conducted in line with EULEX’s commitment to support the relevant institutions—by providing assistance from forensic experts—in clarifying the fate of more than 1,600 people missing from the conflict in Kosovo,” said an EULEX statement to Radio Free Europe.
During the 1998 and 1999 war in Kosovo, more than 13,000 civilians, mostly Albanians, were killed, and thousands more went missing.
In Serbian territory, five mass graves with nearly one thousand bodies have been discovered since the early 2000s.
According to the Red Cross, 1,612 people are still missing from the war in Kosovo.
Unblocking Excavations?
The agreement to search the location near Novi Pazar was reached by the Kosovo and Serbian Working Groups for Missing Persons in meetings in Geneva at the end of January and early July this year.
The meetings were held after a three-year block, during which the parties accused each other of non-cooperation.
Gara mentioned that during the meetings, he proposed investigating around 20 locations in Serbia suspected of being mass graves or individual graves of those missing during the war.
However, the Serbian side requested priority be given to the location near the waste dump in Kozhle, he added.
The Serbian Government Commission for Missing Persons states that they have acted in accordance with all Pristina’s requests, except for locations agreed upon in the last meeting of the Working Group, which will be included in next year’s work plan.
“So far, searches have been conducted at 15 locations in central Serbia, which did not result in finding mortal remains,” the Commission in Serbia says, accusing the Kosovo authorities of refusing to inspect those sites in Kosovo requested by Belgrade.
Pristina rejects the accusations. The head of the Kosovo Government Commission for Missing Persons, Andin Hoti, earlier told Radio Free Europe that 2,700 locations within the country have been investigated.
Ongoing Mutual Accusations
The two sides continue to exchange accusations even after the announcement of the search for a new location in Serbia.
Serbian Prime Minister Miloš Vučević said on September 3 in Novi Pazar that Belgrade is willing to investigate any site and that Pristina is responsible for the lack of progress in the search for the missing.
“All locations that someone thinks should be checked are available and will be available. Of course, there needs to be arguments as to why those locations are mentioned or suspected,” Vučević said in response to questions from Radio Free Europe.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti also said that his government is committed to verifying any information that contributes to uncovering the fate of missing persons.
He expressed hope that the preparations for excavations near Novi Pazar are “not a new attempt by Serbia to avoid other marked locations.”
“There are no bodies, there are no crimes—this was Serbia’s strategy to hide the crimes committed against Albanians in Kosovo. This strategy is still being implemented today by the political heirs of [Slobodan] Milošević in Belgrade,” Kurti said on August 29.
The recent meetings in Geneva were held without the leaders of the respective Kosovo and Serbian commissions, and thus the authorities in Pristina do not consider them as regular.
For two years, Kosovo has been requesting Serbia to replace the head of its delegation, Veljko Odalović, as he is a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia, which was led by former President Slobodan Milošević in the 1990s.
Kosovo accuses Odalović of participating in the structures responsible for the war and the persecution of Albanians from Kosovo.
The Serbian side dismisses the accusations and rejects Kosovo’s request.
What Has Serbia Done So Far?
The last excavations in Serbia were conducted in 2022 at the Shtaval mine site near Sjenica in southwestern Serbia.
Neither at this location nor at Kozarevo near Novi Pazar were any mortal remains found, says the Serbian Commission for Missing Persons.
The last mass grave was discovered in 2020 at the former Kizhevak mine near Raška in southern Serbia.
It was the fifth mass grave discovered in Serbian territory since 2001.
Kosovo Requests New Searches at Found Graves
In the Geneva meetings, the Kosovo delegation requested re-examination of the locations where mass graves were found in the early 2000s, specifically in Batajnica, Petrovo Selo, and Perućac.
“For us, the priority remains the Batajnica location. Based on the analyses we have done and the satellite images we have secured, we encourage a return to this site due to the possibility of finding and exhuming more than 50 war victims,” Gara says.
Natasha Kandić from the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund also suggests there could be more bodies at these locations.
“There is evidence that not only the grave near the Perućac lake but also the lake itself should be drained, as there are strong claims that some bodies were found with stones around their necks, which means they may have been submerged,” Kandić tells Radio Free Europe.
She adds that besides Perućac and Batajnica, Petrovo Selo “could also contain other remains.”
At the beginning of September, the Humanitarian Law Fund from Belgrade and Pristina published the second volume of the book “Kosovar Book of Remembrance – Dignity for the Missing,” based on 1,636 accounts of the missing from 1998 to 2000.
“The book is an effort to stop the manipulations and to show: look, read how these people disappeared, who saw them last, who was with them and also went missing, and later were exhumed and identified, at which locations they were found… This is something that can help,” says Kandić.
Will War Archives Be Opened?
Kosovo also requests Serbia to open the archives of the army and police units responsible for crimes against the Albanian population.
Gara says that opening them would help clarify the sites for excavations.
The Serbian Commission for Missing Persons reiterates its previous stance that Serbia has shared over 2,000 documents with Kosovo and “based on these, a large number of Albanian remains have been exhumed in Kosovo.”
They add that in return, they have not received any information from Kosovo that would help clarify the fate of missing persons from the Serbian and other non-Albanian communities, of which, according to this commission’s data, there are around 570.
Hoti from the Kosovo Commission has previously told Radio Free Europe that the documents provided by the Serbian side do not have significant importance.
What Does the Declaration on the Missing Oblige?
The Serbian Government Commission states that at the Geneva meeting, Belgrade proposed forming a special group to handle the archives of domestic institutions, “while respecting data confidentiality measures.”
Kosovo and Serbia committed to full access to information, including confidential ones, with the Declaration on Missing Persons, which was approved in May 2023, as part of the EU-mediated dialogue for normalizing relations.
EU spokesperson Peter Stano previously told Radio Free Europe that this declaration, which was approved by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, “is not yet in force.”
“The declaration insists on opening the secret drawers and knowing exactly who has what information. In Serbia, these are the generals and those who were part of the highest political and military leadership. In Kosovo, they are the local commandants,” says Kandić.
She adds that the declaration should begin to be implemented.
“But it seems there is a political agreement from both the Kosovar and Serbian sides to do as little as possible and make as many accusations as possible,” Kandić says.
Who Was Responsible for the Movement of Bodies?
For crimes in Kosovo, including the movement of bodies and their burial in hidden graves, the Hague court sentenced former head of the Department of Public Security at Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vlastimir Đorđević, to 27 years in prison.
The judgment states that the transport was part of a coordinated operation to remove evidence of crimes committed by Serbian forces against Kosovars.
Đorđević’s sentence was later reduced to 18 years, and he is serving it in a prison in Germany.
So far, no one has been held accountable in Serbian courts for the movement and concealment of the bodies of Kosovo Albanians. /REL/
