After 27 years, DNA identifies three victims of the “Mitrovica Intellectuals Group

After more than 27 years of waiting and uncertainty, the Hague laboratory has officially confirmed the first three victims identified through DNA analysis from the so-called “Mitrovica Intellectuals Group.”

The identifications were made possible after a month of intensive excavation operations at three mass graves in Zubin Potok. At these sites, in April 1999, Serbian forces executed and concealed the bodies of 23 Albanian civilians, including well-known doctors, professors and activists. While analyses of the remaining members of the group continue, the Government Commission is calling for the opening of wartime archives and the punishment of those responsible.

After 27 years, excavations in the villages of Kalludër and Jabukë in Zubin Potok have brought to light human remains believed to belong to 23 civilians known as the “Intellectuals Group” from Mitrovica. The exhumation has officially been completed, while the first reports received from The Hague have enabled the identification of three victims. The remaining samples are still under examination.

Kushtrim Gara, from the Government Commission on Missing Persons, said that Kosovo’s institutions had received the first three DNA reports and were continuously cooperating with the forensic experts of the International Commission to receive and expedite procedures for the other samples sent from the mass grave sites in Kalludër and Jabukë. According to him, as soon as new results arrive, the victims’ families will be notified, as happened with the first three identifications.

The “Intellectuals Group” consisted of surgeons, doctors, professors and activists for the national cause. They were traveling in an organized manner toward Montenegro to escape persecution, but were stopped in the Zubin Potok area and executed. Their bodies were later placed in mass graves in an effort to conceal the traces of the crime.

Among the three identified victims is the well-known activist Idriz Rrecaj. However, the forensic work has not been completed, as analyses of the remaining remains are continuing. Alongside identifying the victims, it is also essential to determine those responsible and bring them to justice.

Gara stressed that the families of missing persons had been waiting for a long time and that justice could not take away their pain, but could bring comfort and show that their suffering had not been forgotten. He emphasized that uncovering the fate of those forcibly disappeared and punishing those responsible for crimes of genocidal proportions constitute ongoing institutional obligations, so that the families’ right to learn the truth and receive justice is respected.

In addition to the forensic investigations, all evidence and material testimony collected at the mass graves in the north are being officially handed over to the Directorate for the Investigation of War Crimes.

Kosovo’s institutions have reiterated their request to the international community to exert pressure on Belgrade to open the military archives from 1999. These documents are considered crucial to fully uncovering the massacre.