The Mystery of Little Kalludra: 27 Years in Pursuit of the Truth About 23 Missing People

Natasha Kandiq has issued a stark warning, stressing that Serbian police forces knew about the massacre from the moment it occurred, but instead of launching an investigation and arresting those responsible, they ordered the bodies to be buried. According to her, this act reduced the Albanian victims to remains to be concealed, thereby covering up the traces of a serious crime.

The village of Little Kalludra, located in the Municipality of Zubin Potok, is believed to contain a mass grave holding the remains of Albanian civilians missing since the armed conflict in Kosovo. It was one of the most gruesome episodes of that period, in which 23 people lost their lives on April 19, 1999, and evidence about the event has been publicly available since 2013. Nevertheless, the authorities have taken no substantive investigative action to date.

Information about the possible location of the mass grave came to light on January 7, 2013, when the Albanian-language daily “Zëri” published an article accompanied by testimony from a Serb named Ranko Tepavac. He described the execution of 23 Albanian civilians and their secret burial in the stream running through the village of Little Kalludra. According to an article by Natasha Kandiq, head of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Fund, published on the Peshçanik portal, Tepavac had given this account to UNMIK and Kosovo Police investigators as early as February 7, 2003.

According to Kandiq’s account, Tepavac described the event in full detail: during the war, he was in Great Kalludra and saw a column of unarmed Albanians stopped by a group led by Jovica Utviq, who was from Little Kalludra. After robbing them of their money and valuables and assuring them that he would allow them to continue toward Ulcinj, Utviq suddenly ordered them to turn back and then opened fire on them without mercy. A villager immediately alerted the police to what had happened. Law enforcement officers arrived at the scene and, as Tepavac testified, issued a horrifying order: “Bury those you killed.”

Neither the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade nor its Kosovo branch has any evidence that UNMIK or the Kosovo Police took even the slightest action after 2003 to inspect the suspected site or initiate criminal proceedings.

A detailed reconstruction of the victims’ fatal journey was published in 2024 in the second volume of the Kosovo Memory Book, titled “Dignity for the Missing,” published by the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade.

In early April 1999, activists from the Democratic League of Kosovo in Mitrovica were alarmed by reports that the Serbian Police had begun a wave of arrests targeting prominent members of the political party. Fearing for their safety, several of them, including Faruk Spahiu, who would later serve as mayor of South Mitrovica from 2000 to 2005, Adem Beqiri, Adem Ademi, Sahit Berani, Hasan Dërvari and Demir Ahmeti, took refuge in the village of Kotorr. There they met Xhafer Behrami, a guide with extensive knowledge of the area, who agreed to lead them through the mountains toward the border with Montenegro. Many others soon joined the group, bringing the total to around 20 people, including members of the Mëziu and Ujkani families, as well as Idriz Rrecaj.

At around three in the afternoon on April 19, 1999, the group set out from Kotorr toward Montenegro. Xhafer Behrami had warned them that the journey was extremely dangerous, but no one turned back. Shaban Abazi, a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army equipped with explosives, also traveled with them.

The group walked throughout the night through the forests near Prevllaka. At one point, after noticing lights in the distance and fearing they might belong to enemy forces, the group scattered and lost contact with one another. Although they shouted out, the wind drowned out their voices, and they reunited only after about 20 minutes. At that point, they discovered that three of them — Xhevat Llausha, Faruk Spahiu and Ismet Ferizi — were no longer with the group.

In testimony given to the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade in 2001, Faruk Spahiu said that as soon as he spotted the lights, he dropped to the ground and remained motionless. His companions, Ismet Ferizi and Xhevat Llausha, did the same. They then continued walking eastward, slept in an unoccupied home and were captured the next day in Zubin Potok by an armed Serb, who handed them over at the police station. After being questioned, all three were released and managed to return to Mitrovica.

The rest of the group, meanwhile, continued toward Little Kalludra. From an elevated position, they spotted Serbian forces on the hill opposite them, and someone shouted for them to flee as quickly as possible. A gunshot followed the warning, and then came an order to stop. According to Xhafer Behrami’s 2021 account, only Demir Ahmeti and Shaban Abazi managed to run away, with Behrami following behind them. The others turned back toward the stream.

Near the village of Dren, Demir Ahmeti decided to surrender and approached the home of a Serbian forest ranger known as Lane. Behrami recalled hearing Demir call out the forester’s name, but no gunshot was heard. One day later, Behrami and Abazi had returned to Kotorr. After the war ended, Behrami learned that Xhevat, Faruk and Ismet, who had lost contact with the group on that fateful night, had managed to survive the ordeal.

In her article published by Peshçanik, Natasha Kandiq alleges that UNMIK and the Kosovo Police had possessed key information about the crime and the burial site since February 2003, but there is no indication that a serious investigation or inspection of the site was ever conducted. Such conduct, she stresses, along with the prolonged institutional silence, perpetuates the stripping of the victims’ human dignity: they have been denied the right to have a name and a proper funeral ceremony, while their families have been deprived of the opportunity to learn the truth, to have a grave at which to mourn and a place at which to remember them.

According to preliminary data, on that tragic date, April 19, 1999, 23 Albanians disappeared in the Drenica and Kalludra area, within the territory of Zubin Potok. They were the so-called “group of intellectuals,” most of whom lived in the Mitrovica region. Even after more than 27 years, the mystery surrounding their fate has yet to receive a definitive answer.

Kosovo institutions have repeatedly stated that official records confirm the Yugoslav Army’s involvement in this crime, and they have consistently called for regional cooperation and the opening of secret archives to shed light on the case. It is hoped that future excavations at the site will provide the key to solving one of the darkest and most brutal wartime crimes committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, the relatives of the missing people continue to demand the truth and justice, even after all these decades.

Tamara Nikçeviq, an RTK contributor, covers developments in the region.