KALLUDER E VOGEL
\nErblin Ademi watched from afar as workers excavated recently discovered mass graves from the 1998-99 war in Kosovo. Nearly 30 years after his father went missing, Ademi both feared and wished that his remains will finally be found.
\nAdemi was just 9 when he last saw his father, Adem Ademi, a prominent surgeon who disappeared along with 22 other intellectuals in April 1999, just months before the end of the war. Some 1,600 people are still missing from the conflict, believed scattered in unmarked mass graves, and Ademi\u2019s family had endured years of anguish and disappointments at failed efforts to find his father\u2019s remains.
\nThey are now cautiously optimistic because the newly found graves are near to where Ademi was last seen. Excavations near the village of Kalluder e Vogel in the northern municipality of Zubin Potok, started in late July after the discovery of human remains there. Kosovo\u2019s Prime Minister Albin Kurti has said that the authorities believe the victims could be the missing intellectuals, who allegedly were caught as they were trying to flee Kosovo to avoid being rounded up by Serb troops.
\n\u201cAlways, when we hear about the beginning of the excavations, there is a mixed feeling, a feeling of hope and a feeling of pain,\u201d Ademi said. \u201cNo matter how many years pass, the feeling of pain will always exist \u2026 but at the same time there has always been hope, a feeling that finally the truth will be revealed.\u201d
\nKosovo\u2019s missing include roughly 1,200 ethnic Albanians, around 400 ethnic Serbs and dozens of Roma, according to the Humanitarian Law Center rights group. Some 13,000 people died in Kosovo\u2019s war, which saw ethnic Albanians launch a rebellion to gain independence from Serbia. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade still does not recognize.
\nTensions still simmer. In May 2023, Serbia and Kosovo reached an agreement which included commitments by both sides to clarify the fate of the missing, but Kosovo and Serbia have accused each other of stalling efforts to work together.
\n\u201cIt is obvious that authorities are not willing to cooperate,\u201d said Bekim Blakaj, from the Humanitarian Law Center.
\nThe European Union wants Kosovo and Serbia to normalize ties in order to move forward in their plans to join the bloc. Police in Kosovo said last month they arrested two ethnic Serbs on suspicion of war crimes in connection with the mass graves, several days before the latest excavations started. The two men remain in custody.
\nSeveral top Serbian political and military officials have been tried and convicted of war crimes in Kosovo at a U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Erblin Ademi clutched the photo of his father holding him as a little boy. \u201cEvery human being has the right to have a grave where they can be visited, where they can be honored, where they can be remembered,\u201d Ademi said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KALLUDER E VOGEL Erblin Ademi watched from afar as workers excavated recently discovered mass graves from the 1998-99 war in Kosovo. Nearly 30 years after his father went missing, Ademi both feared and wished that his remains will finally be found. Ademi was just 9 when he last saw his father, Adem Ademi, a prominent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n