Seven years since Bajram Rexhepi's death

Today it is seven years since Kosovo's first prime minister at the post-war time, Bajram Rexhepi, has passed away.

In April 2017, Rexhepi was admitted to CKUK because of a health attack on vital organs, while then sent to Turkey for further treatment. After a five - month battle with the disease, he died on August 21st of that year, leaving behind his wife and daughter.

Bajram Rexhepi was born in Mitrovica on 3 June 1954. Post-graduate studies were conducted in Zagreb in 1985. He worked as general surgeon and endoscopic specialist at the Mitrovica regional hospital until 1990.

Rexhepi spent most of his career as a surgeon and earned fame as the best surgeon in the Mitrovica region.

During the 1999 Kosovo war, Rexhepi joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) and spent three months serving as a doctor on the ground. He served as chairman of southern Mitrovica, working with UN and NATO peacekeepers to reduce civil unrest.

While Serbs and Albanians had ruined all the dialogue, Rexhepi offered to give up his position in favour of a UN administrator, but Serbs rejected the proposal. He was once the head of the Kosovo Democratic Party's branch for the town of Mitrovica.

On March 4th 2002, after three months of talks and the mediation of then UNMIK chief Michael Steiner, the Kosovo Assembly elected Bajram Rexhepi as Kosovo's first post-war prime minister.

On April 1, 2010, Rexhepi was appointed minister of Internal Affairs. In recent years, he had withdrawn from politics by committing himself to his surgeon profession