What is the cost of war damages in Kosovo caused by Serbia?

“In May 1999, Serbian forces have killed grandfather, grandmother and 21-year-old sister, who was a student at Pristina University. Our house has been fired 23 times, and the house is on fire”, Murtezaj says.

Although Ehati has no record of the cost of material losses, over 22 billion euros account for the damages of the war Serbia has caused in Kosovo before and during the recent war (1990-1999), former Kosovo Government officials say. That is why they say the Kosovo side should seek retaliation of recent damages in the dialogue process that has resumed last week in Brussels.

According to a November 1999 UNHCR study, almost 40 percent of all houses inhabited in Kosovo were severely damaged or completely destroyed, quoted in a Human Rights Organisation report, Human Rights Watch (HRW)

The same report says that according to a United Nations damage assessment, for 649 schools in Kosovo, more than one fifth of the schools surveyed were severely damaged, and more than 60 percent were completely destroyed.

According to Fund for Humanitarian Law data, more than 13,000 people were killed during the war in Kosovo.

The issue of compensation for war damages, 16 July, has been raised in Brussels when the Kosovo-based dialogue resumed. Serbia after 20 months of pause.

This meeting has been discussed with the unemployed and economic issues. Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, after the meeting, said the economy includes compensation for war damages and pension funds. The next expert meeting between Kosovo and Serbia on these issues is warned on July 23rd.

Kosovo Government officials do not publish the cost of war damage damage data caused by Serbia in Kosovo, but say they exist.

Xhavit Beqiri, adviser to Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, said all data will be presented in Brussels by the delegation members and will be made public.

The “has also data on the damage to war, the damage to cultural heritage objects, damage to schools, there are facts” Beqiri said.

How much are the damages of the Kosovo war valued?

After the end of the war in Kosovo, economic experts and former Kosovo Government officials made up a study in which the damages of war have been assessed.

Hakki Shatri, former finance minister who in 2006 during talks on resolving Kosovo's status in Vienna, has been the team's co-ordinator for economic issues, says that according to experts' data that has been presented in the talks -- the damages in general that Serbia has caused Kosovo -- account for about 22 billion euros.

In addition to murders, violations during the recent war in Kosovo, Shatri says Serbs have caused damage in the public sector, private sector, then reportedly, the robbery of the pension fund, citizens' deposits and many other damage.

“Dations that have become domestic economies have been destroyed, livestock burned, social property destroyed, in some cases being looted and physically transported to Serbia and so on. The delegation from Kosovo should present these data to the table and the international factor should see what has happened,” said Shatri.

Mustafa: Without compensation for damages there can be no normalisation of Kosovo-Serbia relations

Even Muhamet Mustafa from the “Riinvest” Institute has been the team's co-ordinator for economic issues at the Negotiator Group in Vienna. Mustafa does not show the cost of damages, but says clearing economic accounts and damageing those who have suffered damage during the war is essential to normalising relations and good neighbourly relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

Because the damage to private property during the war is enormous. We list them all. And when it comes to damage to private persons, neither the state nor the international community can intervene so as not to be damaged. Because the international conventions, the Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms, protect private property from injury resulting from political or war motives. And that's what we're dealing with all the nationals”, Mustafa says.

Stream: Kosovo has no war damage data

But, Furtuna Sheremetti, who is doctors in Belgium on the topic of measuring the damages caused by war crimes, says Kosovo authorities have shown no willingness to record war crimes and damages.

Sheremet, who has been adviser to former Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, thinks Kosovo has not had an operational strategy as a state to address the past.

Kosovo after 20 years after the war has done nothing to address the damage. What is done for the record is made of civil society. There is a database for the killings that have occurred in Kosovo and which is held by the Fund for Humanitarian Law in Kosovo, which is the initiative of civil society is not from the state”, says Sheremet.

Individual Cases

At the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Rights Fund, they say they do not have the exact number of procedures for compensation of damages to Kosovo Albanians, against Serbia's organs, because they have not addressed the entire Fund.

In a response to Radio Free Europe, some of them have indicted via lawyers who are independently engaged”.

The Humanitarian Law Fund has been addressed to more than 130 Kosovo Albanians, who have been victims of human rights violations and are represented by lawyers in about 35 damages for compensation of the damage, the Fund is said to be in response.

Government Initiatives for Ratings, Failed

Otherwise, until now, the Kosovo government has never presented any official assessment of material damages. But in 2011, 12 years without the end of the war, he warned that he would start collecting facts to argue, as a scientific and professional war crimes truth” had been said, and in this context, in 2011, 12 years after the war, he established the Institute for Investigation of War Crimes, under the Ministry of Justice.

But, with the decision of the Government of Kosovo, it was closed in 2018, while the Transitional Justice Division, which had to continue the work of the institute, was formed in the Ministry of Justice. Directors of this institution say they're in the consolidation phase and they'll start working on the ground soon.

Even the past government, led by former Prime Minister Albin Kurti, had warned of establishing the new institute for investigating war crimes committed during the war in Kosovo, including crimes against humanity and genocide. That, however, remained pending after the government's shift to Kosovo.