Kosovo Mass Grave Discovery Revives Families' Hope for Answers

Nearly three decades after his father vanished during Kosovo's 1998-99 war, Erblin Ademi stood behind a police cordon, watching workers dig at a newly discovered mass grave site. The excavation, which began in late July near the villages of Upper and Lower Kalluder in the northern municipality of Zubin Potok, has rekindled a painful mix of hope and sorrow for Ademi and other families still searching for answers.

Ademi was just nine years old when his father, Adem Ademi, a prominent surgeon, disappeared along with 22 other intellectuals in April 1999, months before the conflict ended. The family has endured years of anguish and repeated disappointments as previous efforts to locate his remains failed. Now, the proximity of the new site to where his father was last seen has given them cautious optimism.

"Always, when we hear about the beginning of the excavations, there is a mixed feeling, a feeling of hope and a feeling of pain," Ademi said. "No matter how many years pass, the feeling of pain will always exist... but at the same time there has always been hope, a feeling that finally the truth will be revealed."

Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti has said authorities believe the victims could be the missing intellectuals, who were allegedly caught while trying to flee Kosovo to avoid being rounded up by Serb troops.

According to the Humanitarian Law Center, a prominent rights group, around 1,600 people remain missing from the conflict. This includes roughly 1,200 ethnic Albanians, about 400 ethnic Serbs, and dozens of Roma. The war itself claimed some 13,000 lives, as ethnic Albanians rebelled to gain independence from Serbia, which was declared in 2008 but is still not recognized by Belgrade.

Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia persist. In May 2023, the two sides reached an agreement that included commitments to clarify the fate of the missing, but each has accused the other of stalling cooperation. Bekim Blakaj, head of the Humanitarian Law Center, said, "It is obvious that authorities are not willing to cooperate." He also noted that an ethnic Serb witness who provided information about the Kalluder mass grave was recently arrested in Serbia on suspicion of espionage, a move he called "a direct example of how authorities in Serbia are treating this issue."

Police in Kosovo have arrested two ethnic Serbs in connection with the case, though no details have been released. Several top Serbian political and military officials have already been tried and convicted for war crimes in Kosovo at a U.N. tribunal in The Hague.

For Erblin Ademi, who clutched a photo of his father holding him as a little boy, the wait continues. "Every human being has the right to have a grave where they can be visited, where they can be honored, where they can be remembered," he said. "We are very hopeful that this will be the end, no matter how long the whole process will take, we will wait until we can honor them as they deserve."