27 years since the murder of 86 civilians in Kralan, Gjakova

It was April 2nd 1999 when in Kralan, Serbian military and police forces separated several hundred boys and men from the group of 1500 Albanians who had abandoned the sites to escape Serbian crimes that had involved all of Kosovo. Others were ordered to go to Albania.

Two days later, April 4th, by the group of boys and men who have been held in the meadow all the time, surrounded by tanks, without water and food, a large number have been released. 86 were held, including 11 minors.

Since that day, since then, none of them have been seen alive.

The Fund for Humanitarian Law (FDH) in 2013 had made a criminal complaint against several Yugoslav Army war crimes superiors in Kralan. On this occasion, it was reported that the bodies of 18 banned boys and men were found in a mass cemetery near Peruca Lake, in Bajina Basta, Serbia.

The FDH, based on statements by dozens of witnesses, has identified six Serbian army and police superiors who have been in the highest positions of the entities allegedly committed crimes.

Regarding Serbian crimes in Kralan, in December 2014 a letter chief prosecutor of The Hague Tribunal has been sent to the Society's head of “Family and Hope” Ariphete Bytyqi. On behalf of the families of 86 victims of the massacre, Bytyqi demanded that the killings of 86 Albanian civilians by Serbian police be investigated on April 4th 1999 in Kralan.

Bytyqi in his letter recalled that none of the culprits for the massacre was sent to justice.