Kosovo: No Remains Found in Suspected Mass Grave Site

"On this occasion no remains were located," Alan Robinson, the co-head of the Department of Forensic Medicine within EULEX, told journalists on Tuesday. 

A forensics team from the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, with the help of search and rescue divers of the Kosovo Security Force, KSF, searched the lake on Tuesday based on suspicion that the site contains bodies of Kosovo Serbs.

Robinson said that the operation was a result of successful collaboration between EULEX and KSF and praised the dedication and professionalism of KSF. 

“We very much look forward to work with them in our future operations," he said.

He added that the team was ready to go and assess the site again ‘if provided with better information’.

The searches of suspected mass grave sites began after information was provided last year by a Serbian working group on missing persons.

The inter-governmental talks are held under the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, which has been playing an important role in the issue of missing persons.

The teams on Wednesday will restart another site assessment at Zilivoda near Vushtrri, which first began at the end of August 2010. The location is close to a coal mine in Belaqevc.

There are allegations that the bodies of some 26 Kosovo Serbs might have been buried in a mass grave at this location, and it is expected that the excavation will last around four months.

The head of the forensics department within Kosovo's Ministry of Justice, Arsim Gerxhaliu, said that this is the third attempt the area is being searched, after efforts were halted last September due to bad weather.

The first search, shortly after the working groups first raised their concerns three years ago, went to a depth of about eight metres, but no remains were discovered.

“We will bring the machinery today and tomorrow the teams will start excavating,” Gerxhaliu told Balkan Insight on Tuesday.

He added that the government intends to check all locations provided by the Serbian working group by September, as pledged in its operational plan.

He said that the next site is Kosare, a location between Kosovo and Albania where fighting took place between the Serbian army and the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1999 armed conflict.

Gerxhaliu said Kosovo had received maps from Serbia indicating the location of mines placed in the area and explained that the mines must first be removed before excavation can begin.

“We will start the search as soon as the site is cleared of mines,” he said.

Since EULEX experts joined the forensics effort in December 2008, the department has conducted over 270 field operations. The bodies of more than 135 missing persons have been found. 

There are still more than 1,800 persons who have not been accounted for, out of which some 400 are Kosovo Serbs.