1,643 people are still missing in Kosovo

More than 22 years have passed since the armed war in Kosovo, while the families of 1643 missing persons are still awaiting answers to the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.

Family members of missing persons have suffered in an effort to cope with their loved ones' absence, while the COVID-19 pandemic has made their situation even more difficult.

The overall decline in the scale of fate and location of missing persons and the lack of a proper response to the needs of their family has remained the main concerns of the International Red Cross Committee (KNKK) in Kosovo in recent years.

On the occasion of International Day of Missing Persons, the head of the mission of the International Red Cross Committee in Kosovo, Agim Gashi, said authorities should step up their efforts to solve this humanitarian problem that has burdened Kosovo society with more than two decades.

Concerned about the declining pace in which cases of missing persons have been resolved in recent years, Gashi confirmed that while eight cases have been resolved in 2019, this year the location of only three people has been traced.

“The main gendarme to faster progress is the lack of new information that would lead to new cemetery locations,” he said.

According to international humanitarian law, family members have the right to know what happened to their loved ones. As always, The KNKK is ready to support authorities in fulfilling their responsibilities in this regard and urges them to put the entirely humanitarian issue of missing persons into the first plan. On the other hand, it is the last moment that people who may have information that can be accessed to the dawn of any missing person's case to appear and that all people of the goodwill to try to get family members out of this darkness surrounding” are said in a KNKK communique.