Two human skulls were found in Serbia’s Kizevak mass grave, where excavations are being conducted after a winter break.
The director of Kosovo’s Forensic Agency, Arsim Gerxhaliu told the news agency Ekonomia Online that on Tuesday DNA samples will be sent for further analysis.
The excavation in Serbia’s southwestern town of Kizevak resumed last week, and Gerxhaliu said that they will be working there for another two weeks.
“I do not want to talk about numbers [of victims in the mass grave], but I can say that the Serbian party sometimes say 14 [persons], sometimes 16. But what we know is that this group [of victims] is related to Rezalla, which is related to what we found in 2014 in Rudnica [another mass grave in Serbia],” Gerxhaliu said.
“And we also have a conclusion because half a body found previously elsewhere, has now been reunited with its other half that was found in Kizevak,” he added.
In April 1999, 98 Albanian civilians were executed in the village of Rezalla. Two of the missing victims were found in the village right after the war, while 29 others were found in a mass grave in Serbia’s Rudnica, near Kizevak.
Part of the Kosovo team working in Kizevak are two forensic doctors, an anthropologist, and a forensic photographer.
Excavations in Serbia’s Kizevak started in 2015 by joint Serbia-Kosovo teams. They were intensified after mortal remains were confirmed in November, as well as 5 mass graves in December. Since then two victims have been identified, both from the Rezalla massacre.
The identification of the exact location of the mass graves was made possible through aerial images from 1999.
Over 1600 people are still listed as missing since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999.
