Families of missing persons from the war in Kosovo criticized the government for not doing enough to clarify the fate of their relatives, during a parliamentary session held on the International Day of Remembrance and Honor of the Victims of Genocide Crimes, on Wednesday.
They demanded justice and called on local institutions and the international community to put pressure on Serbia to provide information on those killed, which may be buried in mass graves in the territory of Serbia.
Nysrete Kumnova, representative of “Mothers’ Calls”, an NGO dealing with missing persons in Kosovo, requested for them to be part of the Kosovo delegation in the dialogue with Serbia.
“We are ready to face by providing evidence,” she said.
“I do not want to close my eyes, and no mother wants to, without returning our loved ones from the mass graves in Serbia,” Kumnova said, adding that the families of more than 1,600 missing people have lived in anxiety for two decades.
Bajram Cerkini from missing persons association “Parents’ Voice” demanded local institutions work on the issue, as he said, and not expect Serbia to do it itself.
“This [issue] needs great pressure from friends who liberated us,” Cerkini said.
The Speaker of Kosovo’s Parliament, Vjosa Osmani said that Serbia should be forced to provide information on missing persons and other crimes.
“Serbia must accept the historical weight of committing genocide against Albanians. It must be forced to provide information on the systematic violence against victims, and above all on the locations of our missing citizens,” Osmani said.
Osmani added that Serbian officials’ officials’ calls to the public to refrain from providing information about mass graves is a new crime towards Kosovo.
She referred to a statement of the former Serbian Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic on October, saying “what do we do with some Serbs who tell Croats and Albanians where their missing co-nationals are buried across Serbia, and similar stupidities?”.
