Karen Thomas, Pristina, 17 June 2005

The bodies of 20 Kosova Albanians recovered from mass graves in Serbia will finally rest with their families in the southern Kosovo town of Meja.

But Idriz Gashi, spokesman for the Pristina International Committee for the Red Cross, warns: “Almost 3,000 people are still unaccounted for. The majority are Albanians but there are also missing Serbs, Turks, Bosniaks and Roma peoples.”

The ICRC works closely with families trying to find their loved ones who have been missing since 1998. The vast majority of missing relatives are men aged between 18 and 65 years.

But until March this year, the process of recovery and identification for Kosovo had stalled.

“The United Nations here wants reconciliation between the ethnic groups,” says Mr Gashi, “but the missing persons were a stumbling block.”

At first it was the Serb and Kosova Liberation Army commanders who refused to say where people had gone missing in areas under their control during the war in 1999.

Next there were political motives to stop dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

Now there has been a breakthrough and more than 200 cases have been solved in the last two months.

DNA samples from living relatives and the corpses are matched for identification.

A day of mourning has been declared in Meja for tomorrow’s re-burial.

Find out more about...

Peace building - the issues