Kosovo today hands over to Serbia the remains of three troops killed during the war

The remains of three Serb citizens killed in the last war in Kosovo are expected to be handed over to Serbia's authorities Tuesday at the border checkpoint in Merdara. They have been among the 280 unidentified troops in the Pristina morgue.

Ditor Haliti, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine, has told Radio Free Europe that the remains of troops to be delivered today have remained in the Institute since post-war, but have been a problem identifying them.

The “were in the Institute because they could not identify during this time because family did not give blood samples to identify. Last year, family blood samples have been given, and additional DNA samples have been sent to us, which have given us their identifying results”, he said.

Serbia's authorities have also announced the admission of these troops. In a communiqué issued by the Government of Serbia, it becomes known that today in Merdare, their authorities will accept the remains of two people, while for the third person, the remains will accept his family. According to the government of Serbia, they were killed in Ferizaj, Prizren and Pristina in 1999.

Haliti has said that there are still many unidentified morto remains in the Institute.

The “we have 280 bodies (cochor legs) that do not comply with blood samples are both communities, Serbs and Albanians. It's also working on the exhumation level that took place last year, but the revision of the mortore remains that are”, he said.

Haliti has also indicated that Kosovo's institutions, Kosovo Police, the EULEX mission and the government Commission for the unemployed are continuing the search for mortar waste, but has not provided further details.

During the 1998/99 war in Kosovo, about 13,000 people were killed, 10,794 Albanians, 2,119 Serbs, while others belong to other ethnicities.

Of the some 6,000 people then forcibly extinct, more than 1,600 people remain. Many of the missing were found in mass cemetery in Serbia for years.

According to the Kosovo Government Commission for Undiscovered Persons, during 2023 it was dug into 15 locations within Kosovo's territory, connecting with the process of whiteening the fate of missing persons, as well as at a location in Serbia, writes Radio Free Europe.

The exhumed “are the mortary remains of twenty individuals victims of war, even though the number of exhumed persons and their identity will be determined after all forensic examinations and identification through DNA analysis”, the Kosovo Government Commission report said.