The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, said that 11 bodies believed to be of Kosovo Albanian war victims were found in the mass grave of Kizevak, near the southern town of Raska.
“The last location is Kizevak, and the remains of 11 bodies were found there, two bodies were checked, DNA analysis revealed that they were [Kosovo] Albanians, and we informed both the [Kosovo] Albanians and the international community so that the families could be informed,” Balkan Insight quotes Vučić as saying in a press conference on Wednesday.
Vučić asked Kosovo authorities to search for the missing bodies of Kosovo Serbs, naming nine locations that Belgrade had requested be explored for human remains, but claimed that no action has been takes so far by Kosovo.
The excavation in Kizevak was concluded on May 26, with Kosovo authorities affirming that “based on anthropological examinations, the minimum number of exhumed individuals is nine.”
Teams from Serbia and Kosovo began excavations in Kizevak in 2015, but their efforts intensified after mortal remains were confirmed on November 16, 2020.
The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) explained that the identification of the exact location where the human remains were found in Serbia, was possible through aerial images from 1999.
The International Committee of the Red Cross made the aerial images from 1999 available to the Kosovo Government Commission on Missing Persons and the Serbian Government Commission on Missing Persons at the end of 2019.
Over 1,600 people are still listed as missing since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999.
Vučić made the statement one day after his first meeting with Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti in Brussels, where the missing persons issue was one of the topics discussed.
