EULEX: We have over 1640 reasons to continue working for the people who are not found

On the occasion of the National Day for Undiscovered Persons, the EU Mission for Sunding Law (EULEX) in Kosovo pays tribute to all persons who have not yet been found and vows to continue working side by side with the Kosovo Law Medicine Institute for whiteling the fate of over 1640 people, who still remain undiscovered in Kosovo.

The chief of the European Union's Mission for Rule of Law, Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, has announced that from the beginning of EULEX's mandate until now, the Mission has conducted 651 field operations to locate undiscovered persons, which has resulted in the identification of 456 individuals, including 311 people found.

“We have more than 1640 reasons to continue working together with our local counterparts to whitewash the fate of missing persons and to give answers to family and loved ones whose lives have changed forever. Children, spouses, parents, relatives and friends of the undiscovered have the right to know what happened to their loved ones,” said Wigemark.

Stressing the importance of DNA for successful identification of undiscovered persons, Chief of EULEX asked the family of all missing persons to provide blood samples for DNA analysis.

“This will facilitate the identification process,” said Wigemark, and added that EULEX will also assist Kosovo authorities in reviewing the issue of about 300 body mortore remains at the Pristina morgue.

EULEX will turn off the lights at its headquarters tonight at 8:00, in support of an initiative by the Kosovo Youth Human Rights Initiative, the Bureau for Missing Persons, Ingera, Kosovo Human Rights Fund and the Z forum. The DF-Program in Kosovo to mark the National Day for Undiscovered Persons with the slogan “for 20 years in the dark at 800 hours turned off the lights for 2 minutes”.