More than 80% of the ethnic Albanian victims killed during the most recent war in Kosovo were civilians. Atdhe Hetemi, director of the Institute for Crimes Committed During the War, disclosed the figure in an interview with RTK Prime following the launch of the Institute’s Report on Crimes Committed During the War in Kosovo.
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Hetemi specified that more than 80% of the victims from the Albanian community were civilians killed in the war. Meanwhile, according to him, more than 52.4% of those killed, missing or dead as a result of the war were armed or had been identified as members of the armed forces.
To document war crimes, the Institute obtained materials from more than 15 different countries around the world. Hetemi said the materials comprise hundreds of linear meters of archival records and more than 21 terabytes of data, collected with the aim of verifying every victim.
According to him, support from international institutions and organizations constituted the second archival pillar. The process of collecting materials covered three categories: people who were killed, those forcibly disappeared and people who died as a result of the war.
Hetemi described the list as preliminary, stressing that the Institute remains open to receiving other cases so that the country’s historical archive can be further enriched.
He explained that the difference lies in the methodology and the basic criteria used to determine which people are included on the list. The four criteria cover people who were born or resided in Kosovo during the war; those who suffered fatal injuries or disappeared under circumstances directly related to the war; people who died from injuries sustained during the war; and, based on documentation, people connected to the most recent war in Kosovo.
In the gender breakdown, Hetemi said that 11,415 victims, or 86.3% of those killed, were male, while 1,811 women were also killed. According to him, an analysis of these data shows that the consequences of the war were not limited to men alone.
The report shows that people of working age were the hardest hit during the war. Hetemi said that 57.5% of the victims belonged to the 18-to-50 age group.
He added that 14.7% of the victims were over the age of 65, while more than 1,240 were between the ages of 0 and 17.
Today’s presentation announced that the report had documented a total of 12,230 war victims for the period from January 1998 to June 20, 1999. It also recorded 1,247 children between the ages of 0 and 17 who were killed, while another 94 died because of wartime conditions. The fate and whereabouts of 100 forcibly disappeared children remain unknown.
