Zubin Potok: Suspected Human Remains of at Least 23 People Found, Kurti Links Them to “Group of Intellectuals

The Government Commission on Missing Persons has presented a report on excavations carried out at three sites in the municipality of Zubin Potok. Human remains were discovered at these locations, suspected to belong to at least 23 people.

Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti announced that at the first excavation site, in a mass grave in Kalludër, the remains of 13 people were found and recovered.

In Jabukë, the second location, remains suspected to belong to at least four people were found. Meanwhile, at the third site in Kalludër, the remains of at least six people were discovered and exhumed.

According to Kurti, the process has now entered the identification stage. Samples taken from the remains suspected to belong to four people in Jabukë have been sent for DNA analysis, while the Institute of Forensic Medicine is continuing preliminary examinations of the other remains.

He stressed that the figure of 23 people corresponds to what is known as the “group of intellectuals.”

Kurti stated that on April 19, 1999, these people were detained, abducted and executed by Serbia’s enemy forces, which, he said, sought to conceal and erase the traces of this genocidal crime. He explained that the full identification process may take several months and that only after it is completed will their identities be confirmed precisely, so that their families can give them a dignified farewell and each person can have a grave bearing their full name.

The acting prime minister said the long wait and anguish endured by the families of forcibly disappeared persons are exceptionally painful.

According to him, hundreds of families are waiting to learn the fate of their relatives, but are also seeking justice. Kurti said Serbia has denied them both and continues to do so by concealing and denying crimes, refusing to open archives and classifying them in an effort to distort the truth and evade responsibility.

Kosovo’s institutions, including the Kosovo Police, the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, as well as EULEX forensic teams, were engaged in the work at these sites. Kurti thanked them for their contribution.

He called on international actors to increase pressure on Serbia to implement the Declaration on Forcibly Disappeared Persons, agreed in Brussels on May 2, 2023, and to open state archives that could help clarify the fate of missing persons.

Kurti said Serbia also arrests and persecutes the few Serbs who have dared to testify before international institutions. For this reason, he said, international pressure on the northern neighbour must increase, particularly to implement the May 2, 2023 Declaration and make state archives available.

He reiterated the demand to open the archive of the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav Army, which, he said, committed massacres particularly in Drenica, but also across Kosovo. Its files, Kurti said, were classified 12 years ago for 30 years and will remain closed for another 18 years.

According to Kurti, families that have waited for 27 and 28 years cannot be forced to continue waiting, suffering anxiety and pain for another 18 years. He assessed that international engagement and pressure are vital to this process.

The preserved and classified files of the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav Army, he said, must be opened by the Serbian state this year, in 2026, rather than in 2044.

Last week, authorities also presented a large quantity of weapons discovered near the sites where excavations were carried out. Kurti said the weapons have been sent for examination and analysis to determine whether they may be linked to crimes and massacres committed in these areas.

In conclusion, Kurti thanked the Government Commission on Missing Persons, the Kosovo Police, the KIA, the Institute of Forensic Medicine and EULEX teams for their contribution to the investigation and examination of these sites.