Office for Kosovo and Metohija: Pristina obstructs every attempt to clarify the fate of missing Serbs

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija stressed that sincere and good-faith efforts to clarify the fate of persons who went missing during the conflict in Kosovo, regardless of their ethnicity, were an obligation owed to humanity and to those who live every day in grief and anguish, not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija recalled that 562 Serbs and other non-Albanians were still listed as missing in Kosovo and stressed that the state of Serbia would never abandon its demand that the truth about their fate be established.

“We appeal to the political representatives in Pristina to stop callously exploiting the issue of missing persons and, instead, to allow, as a first step, the investigation of eight locations for which there is substantiated information and evidence indicating that they contain the remains of murdered Serbs,” the Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated.

It stressed that Belgrade had always acted constructively within the Brussels Dialogue and the Working Group on Persons Unaccounted for in Connection with Events in Kosovo, without making any distinction among missing persons on the basis of their ethnicity.

“Unfortunately, however, Pristina has not shown even the slightest willingness to clarify the fate of missing Serbs. Instead, it has resorted to obstruction, politicization, and the blocking of this profoundly humanitarian issue. To this day, Pristina denies the crimes committed by the terrorist organization ‘KLA,’ obstructs every attempt to clarify the fate of missing Serbs and other non-Albanians, and prevents the establishment of a civilized and humane culture of remembrance for all those who were killed by terrorists during the conflicts in Kosovo and Metohija,” the Office for Kosovo and Metohija stated.

The Office expressed hope that the international community would demonstrate the much-needed understanding necessary for Pristina to cease politicizing the issue of missing persons and for concrete efforts to locate the missing to take precedence over what it described as Pristina’s abuses, which only prolong the agony of the families of missing persons.