Bones discovered in Kalludër, Kurti asks US, EU and Britain to increase pressure on Serbia

Albin Kurti, acting prime minister, announced that during the excavation and exhumation process at the mass grave in Kalludër of Zubin Potok, bones were found.

Following this discovery, he called on international actors to exert more pressure on Serbia to open military archives and clarify the fate of persons missing since the war.

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Kurti said that together with the director of the Institute for Crimes Committed During the War, Atdhe Hetemi, the newly appointed head of the Governmental Commission for Missing Persons, Agron Limani, and the head of the unit of this Commission, Kushtrim Gara, he closely observed the excavations at the mass grave in the village of Kalludër in Zubin Potok. At that location, it is suspected that the bodies of Albanians killed by the armed forces of Serbia are hidden.

He said that precisely during their stay in that area, bones emerged from the excavations and exhumation. According to Kurti, it is painful, sorrowful, and exhausting to see how, 27 years after the war, the truth that Serbia tried not only to deny but also to hide and erase is now shouting and being uncovered.

To clarify the fate of the missing from the last war, Kurti described as vital the increase of pressure from international actors, especially from the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, on the northern neighbor. He called for the implementation of the Declaration on the Missing Persons, agreed upon on May 2, 2023, in Brussels.

According to him, the process would be facilitated and accelerated if the archives were opened immediately, including that of the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav Army. Kurti said that this brigade committed massacres in Kosovo, especially in Drenica, while its archive was classified by the Serbian state in 2014 for three decades. Its opening, he added, could end the anxiety of hundreds of families who continue to wait for the chance to at least give a dignified farewell to their loved ones.

Kurti also mentioned the recent arrest by Serbia of its citizens, accused of espionage, who have testified before international institutions regarding war crimes in Kosovo. According to him, this case proves that international pressure is indispensable if the aim is truly to uncover the truth and achieve justice.

He assessed that such actions show that Serbia not only has no interest in truth, justice, and peace, but it stops and imprisons anyone who thinks in that direction.