International Day of the disappeared marked in Gracanica: Time to move the issue of kidnapped persons from deadlock

Family members of kidnapped and missing Serbs marked the International Day of the Disappeared in Gracanica, with the message that the fate of the kidnapped has become a political issue that will not be resolved without political will. They stressed that it is time for this issue to move from a standstill.

Silvana Marinkovic, a representative of the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons, emphasized that the suffering and pain of family members has lasted for 26 years.

“For 26 years in a row we have been gathering in the same place and for the same reason — to mark the International Day of the Disappeared. Every year we hope that our messages will bear fruit, but we are still at the very beginning. When addressing the competent institutions for resolving the issue of the kidnapped, we received promises and false hope. The years go by, and with our pain, sorrow, and uncertainty, we demand that the kidnapped be found and that the perpetrators be brought to justice,” said Marinkovic.

She pointed out that EULEX handed over the information collected by the families of the missing to the Kosovo Investigation Police.

“The only novelty, to our great regret, is that EULEX handed over our confidential information, which we gave them in the hope they would investigate and obtain evidence, to the Kosovo Investigation Police. In this way, as so many times before, they betrayed our trust, because they gave our information to those who committed these crimes. Politicians say this is a humanitarian issue, but in fact it has become a political one, because without political will there will be no results,” Marinkovic added.

Reminding that the fate of 9,920 people missing in the wars of the former Yugoslavia is still unresolved — of which 1,620 are connected to the conflicts in Kosovo — she expressed hope that their fate would eventually be clarified.

“Finally, I want to tell all institutions responsible for resolving the fate of the kidnapped and missing that it is high time — the very last minute — to move from deadlock, to find all the kidnapped, not only Serbs who disappeared in this region, but also Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, and Serbs who went missing in Croatia and Bosnia, to find them all, and to ensure that such tragedies never happen again anywhere,” Marinkovic underlined.

Miroslava Djordjevic, whose father-in-law and uncle were kidnapped in Nerodimlje in 1999, emphasized that 26 years have passed without any trace of them.

“My father-in-law and uncle were kidnapped, and for 26 years there has been no trace, no word about them. What can I say? We don’t even know if they are alive, but we still hope. We expect the best, but we are afraid that nothing will come of it,” Djordjevic said.