Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo Albulena Haxhiu took part today in the closing event of the “We Miss Them” project, which through documentaries and public debates has brought into focus the stories of the families of missing persons and their unrelenting demand to learn the truth.
Haxhiu said these stories do not end with the conclusion of the project, but continue to live on after the screen goes dark and the debates end. According to her, they remain with the families where, for years, the same question has been repeated: how can the violent disappearance of a loved one during the war be understood when the family is left without any answer.
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She stressed that violent disappearance severs the very thread of meaning and that there is no explanation that can ease the families’ waiting, no word that can replace the absence of a loved one.
According to her, however, the impossibility of understanding does not erase the obligation to know. Recalling the words of Primo Levi, Haxhiu said that when understanding is impossible, knowledge becomes essential, and for the families of missing persons this remains the only demand: to know where their loved ones are.
Haxhiu said the lack of answers is linked to the fact that Serbia continues to keep its military, police and state archives closed, thus bearing direct responsibility in this process. She underlined that it is precisely in these archives that data can be found on orders, burials, exhumations and locations that families have been waiting for for more than a quarter of a century.
She added that the discovery of mass graves on the territory of Serbia has clearly shown that the concealment of traces was deliberate. According to Haxhiu, the opening of the archives should not remain in the hands of Belgrade’s will, and international partners should treat this as a clear obligation of Serbia toward families, justice and the truth. She recalled that around 1,600 people continue to remain on the lists of the missing and are often mentioned only as numbers and statistics, while such documentaries go beyond that by bringing the names, faces and stories through the voices of those who have waited for far too long.
Haxhiu also said that from Drenas to Mitrovica, from Peja to Prizren, from Gjilan to Ferizaj, from Gjakova to Prishtina, these stories remind us that although absence is not experienced in the same way in every family, the waiting and the demand remain shared.
According to her, the demand to know should not remain only the burden of the families’ memory, but requires daily institutional commitment through investigation, documentation, forensic work, cooperation with families and the pursuit of every piece of information that may lead to the truth.
She thanked the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the Government Commission, the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the Police and international partners for their commitment to finding persons who were forcibly disappeared and to addressing war crimes. Haxhiu said that progress has been recorded in recent years thanks to increased capacities and legal changes that have made trials in absentia possible, in response to Serbia’s lack of cooperation. She added that the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo remain committed to supporting this process, because justice for war crimes is an unavoidable obligation.
Further on, Haxhiu said that Kosovo has also taken important steps in legal and institutional terms on this issue.
She recalled that in July 2023, Kosovo joined the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP, while in August 2023 the Institute for Crimes Committed During the War was established. According to her, the Transitional Justice Strategy 2024–2034 also places truth-seeking, justice, reparations and institutional reform as the pillars of this field. Haxhiu stressed that this work has also brought concrete results, mentioning the identification of missing persons from the Kralan massacre and their reburial after so many years, as proof that no case can be considered closed until the family receives answers.
In the end, the acting president thanked BIRN Kosovo, ACDC, the European Union and all those who contributed to this project, singling out in particular the families who agreed to speak.
Haxhiu said they did not speak in order to turn pain into a public narrative, but because they know that the truth must have both a voice and witnesses. She concluded that the missing persons are names that belong to the memory of this country and to the responsibility of its institutions, and until there are answers for them, this work cannot be considered finished.
