Vuksanovic: We expect progress in clarifying the fate of the missing persons and truth about the "Yellow House"

Slavisa Vuksanovic, a member of the Executive Board of the Association of Families of the Kidnapped and Missing Persons from Kosovo and Metohija, expects that, thanks to the Brussels agreement and the EU as a mediator, progress could finally be made after four years in clarifying the fate of those who went missing or were kidnapped between 1998 and the end of 2000, not only in Kosovo but also in Albania.

"We expect and must remain optimistic that this new Commission will succeed in, so to speak, compelling both sides to ensure implementation, depoliticizing the process, and initiating the search for missing persons in Kosovo and Metohija," Vuksanovic said to Kosovo Online.

He recalls that this pertains to the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons signed on May 2, 2023.

"Now, if we consider that the previous Working Group, chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which mediated between the commissions from Belgrade and Pristina, did not meet or achieve anything over the past four years, we have to hope that this new Commission, formed in accordance with the Declaration on Missing Persons, will contribute to making progress in locating individuals who went missing or were kidnapped from 1998 to December 31, 2000," Vuksanovic noted.

However, he emphasizes that the families of the missing and kidnapped are insisting on concrete measures being taken on issues that have not yet been addressed, but which were discussed by former Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Carla Del Ponte and included in the report by Council of Europe Special Rapporteur Dick Marty, and that this report served as the basis for establishing the Specialist Chambers for Kosovo in The Hague.

"It has been irrefutably proven that there was trafficking in human organs and that all these illicit and illegal operations, kidnappings, and trafficking took place on the territory of the Republic of Albania, which officially was not a party to the conflict, though we know it was involved. Families demand that the jurisdiction be expanded and that, in addition to the locations in Kosovo and Metohija provided by our Commission for Missing Persons, the locations around the 'Yellow House' also be identified to determine what happened to the individuals who were unlawfully and illegally abducted and whose organs were subsequently removed in Albania," Vuksanovic stressed.