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A wide park with toys and greenery, in the center of the city of Skenderaj, has become the destination of every evening for Flora Rrecaj.<\/p>\n
Inside this park, for several years now, the bust of Idriz Rrecaj, Flora’s father, has been missing since April 19, 1999.<\/p>\n
Idriz Rrecaj, decorated in 2019 as a “Hero of Kosovo”, was an activist politician, who together with 22 other Albanian people, known as the “group of intellectuals”, disappeared at the time when the war of the Serbian forces in Kosovo was intensified.<\/p>\n
“My father was not only our parent… He was an outstanding intellectual. My father was a patriot. He was a person who dedicated his whole life to this country and these people”, says Flora Rrecaj for Radio Free Europe.<\/p>\n
In the absence of a grave where his family remaining of eight members would be able to pay their respects, this park in the northwestern city of Kosovo has become the only place where Flora Rrecaj can feel the closeness of her father and remember him.<\/p>\n
Since the disappearance of Idriz Rrecaj, 27 years ago, Flora and other family members searched for him through lists of prisons in Serbia, testimonies, unconfirmed information and places where remains were occasionally discovered mortuary.<\/p>\n
Now, in addition to the bust in Skenderaj, another place has entered the life of Flora Rrecaj and her family: the northern municipality of Zubin Potok, about 1 hour away from Skenderaj.<\/p>\n
In Kallud\u00ebr te Vog\u00ebl and in Jabuk\u00eb – villages of this Kosovar municipality, inhabited by a majority of Serbs – the authorities recently discovered mass graves.<\/p>\n
The initial suspicions are that the remains of the remains found there may belong to the 23 missing Albanians, among whom was Idriz Rrecaj.<\/p>\n
The exhumation of the remains was completed on August 21.<\/p>\n
However, the name of Kalludra e Vog\u00ebl has not appeared for the first time now.<\/p>\n
According to the Humanitarian Law Fund, a Serbian witness had given the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Kosovo Police Kosovo, as early as February 7, 2003, information about the murder of 23 Albanian civilians and the secret burial of their bodies in the valley of this village.<\/p>\n
It took more than two decades for the search to lead to the mass grave.<\/p>\n
“Except for the one who has a missing family member or relative, no one can describe this pain, despair and waiting. We are often feel disappointed, and it seems that no one is doing anything. I don’t want to blame anyone, or point the finger at anyone, but I say with the right of the world that maybe not enough has been done for these people,” says Flora Rrecaj. However, the hope that the wait may come to an end, according to her, is accompanied by the fear that the DNA analyzes may show that Idriz Rrecaj is not among the remains of found.<\/p>\n
“To put it bluntly, there are mixed feelings. There are feelings of pain, feelings of hope, but there are also feelings of fear. After so many years, now you have a fear of the answer. But, nevertheless, it is necessary and very necessary to know the truth”, she says.<\/p>\n
From the grave to the name: How long can the identification process go?<\/p>\n
The discovery and exhumation of the remains, according to the institutions, they are only the first steps in a process that can last months, and in the most complicated cases even years.<\/p>\n
In the case of Kalludra e Vog\u00ebl and Jabuka, the institutions had searched for a mass cemetery even earlier.<\/p>\n
Agron Limani, head of the Kosovo Governmental Commission for Missing Persons, tells Radio Free Europe that previous searches had approached the cemetery, but that they had not shot at the exact location.<\/p>\n
According to him, the information provided by the Kosovo Police, as well as the arrest of three people suspected of involvement in the crime, led to the three exact locations where the remains were found.<\/p>\n
But even when a mass grave is found, the path from the remains to a name includes several institutions, and several investigative and scientific stages.<\/p>\n
Initially, the Police secures and marks it the location. The Special Prosecutor’s Office is informed, which requests permission for excavations from the court. Experts from the Institute of Forensic Medicine then exhume and examine the remains, document their condition and take samples from the remains.<\/p>\n
The samples are sent to the laboratory of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in The Hague, the Netherlands, where the DNA profile from the remains is compared with the reference profiles of the missing persons’ family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout DNA analysis, and without matching the samples of the skeletal remains with the blood samples, it cannot be said with 100 percent certainty [who they belong to]”, says Limani.<\/p>\n
In the case of Zubin Potok, according to him, the number of remains found, the place and the evidence collected have fueled the suspicion that they may belong to the “group of intellectuals of Mitrovica”.<\/p>\n
“The circumstances and the evidence match the remains”, he says. Limani.<\/p>\n
However, Samira Krehic, head of ICMP for the Western Balkans, warns that the identity of the victims cannot be determined on the basis of the number, location or data on the manner of disappearance.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Radio Free Europe, she says that ICMP issues the match report only when the link between the DNA of the remains and samples of family members reaches a certainty of over 99.95 for percent.<\/p>\n
“Only after we know for sure the individual identity of all the victims found, the reconstruction of the event can begin, not the other way around”, Krehic emphasizes.<\/p>\n
How long the process will take, the institutions say, cannot be predicted.<\/p>\n
The speed depends on the condition of the remains, the impact of time and environment on DNA, the fragmentation or mixing of bones, the quality of the samples taken, and if ICMP has sufficient reference samples from family members.<\/p>\n
According to ICMP, in some cases, the tests must be repeated, or another sample from the bones must be requested. When the family has not provided enough samples, the match may remain pending until a sample is obtained from another relative.<\/p>\n
For Lutfije Ademi Vokshin, this interval, between finding the remains and confirming a name, is a continuation of a wait that started in 1999.<\/p>\n
Her brother, surgeon Adem Ademi, was one of the 23 missing persons. For nearly three decades, she did not completely remove the thought that he could be somewhere near the village of Dren\u00eb in Zubin Potok.<\/p>\n
When the remains were found in Kallud\u00ebr i Vog\u00ebl, about three and a half kilometers from Dren\u00eb as the crow flies, Lutfije Ademi Vokshi says that she could not speak and that only tears flowed.<\/p>\n
In an earlier interview for Radio Europe Free, she hoped that more in the end, he would have a grave where, for holidays, birthdays or Eid, he could bring flowers and “go talk” with his brother.<\/p>\n
But, until the analysis is completed, she does not rule out the possibility that Adem Ademi is not among the remains found.<\/p>\n
For families who have been waiting for 27 years, each new delay prolongs an anxiety that, according to Agron Liman, has become “torturer”.<\/p>\n
He knows this expectation personally. Limani is from Krusha e Vog\u00ebl, in the Municipality of Prizren, where more than 60 people are still missing. Among them are also three of his family members.<\/p>\n
“We have had cases when family members have said: ‘I want to have at least one finger, one bone of the finger, bury it and know where I have the grave of my son, husband or brother. I know that, on any anniversary or holiday, we can respect them and we honor”, he says.<\/p>\n
After the war, according to Liman, many families hoped that the disappeared might still be alive. Over the years, they came to terms with the most painful hope: to find at least their remains.<\/p>\n
“When this wait lasts, it is excruciating for the family members”, says Limani.
\nAccording to the Institute of Crimes Committed During the War in Kosovo, 1,577 people are still missing from the war of 1998-1999, while a total of 12,230 victims of the war have been documented.<\/p>\n
Kosovo has repeatedly asked Serbia for cooperation in clarifying the fate of the missing persons and access to military archives that, according to the authorities, can help identify the locations of possible graves.<\/p>\n
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