Kosovo Confirms Human Remains at Third Zubin Potok Site

Kosovo’s Special Prosecution and the Kosovo Police announced on August 7 that human remains had been confirmed at a third location in Zubin Potok municipality. Until that announcement, the public knew of only two sites where work had been underway since late July, Mala Kaludra and the village of Jabuka.

At the new site, according to the joint statement, forensic examinations and other investigative actions are underway. The prosecutor in charge visited the location together with investigators from the Directorate for War Crimes Investigations and forensic experts, and both institutions said they remain committed to fully clarifying the case. The prosecution said that because the investigation is at a sensitive stage, it cannot disclose more at this time and will release further information later so as not to interfere with the probe.

Three sites, remains of at least four people

Investigative work in Zubin Potok municipality has been running for more than a week and now covers three locations.

• Mala Kaludra, a mountain village in the north of the municipality, where excavation began on July 28 over suspicion of a mass grave. Digging is continuing.
• The village of Jabuka, where Kosovo institutions say the remains of at least four people were found. The remains have been sent for forensic processing and DNA analysis to determine their identity.
• A third location, now under forensic examination, about which the prosecution is not yet giving further details.

The investigation is being conducted on suspicion that the area holds the remains of people who went missing during the 1999 war. None of the remains found so far has been identified, so neither the number nor the identity of the victims is officially known.

What led to the excavations?

The fieldwork was preceded by a Special Prosecution investigation that lasted nearly two years. That detail changes the picture of what is now visible on the ground: the cameras and excavators in Mala Kaludra are not the start of the process but its final phase, the one in which material gathered earlier is being verified.

On the same day the excavations began, July 28, two suspects were arrested, identified by the initials M.J. and M.B. On August 2, following further investigative steps, Kosovo Police arrested a third suspect. All three, Serbs from Zubin Potok, were ordered into one month of detention. They are charged with war crimes against the civilian population, and none of them has been found guilty, as the case remains at the investigative stage.

Searches in Crepulja, Dren and Jabuka

Alongside the work at the excavation sites, police carried out several searches and interviews across northern Kosovo. A search over suspicion of illegal weapons was conducted in the village of Crepulja, and the operation then expanded to the village of Dren. Deputy Kosovo Police commander Veton Eljshani stressed that officers were not searching “houses that had already been searched.”

In Jabuka itself, a search was carried out on August 7. Kosovo Police confirmed the operation was taking place but declined to state its reasons or say whether anyone had been detained or any items seized. Several Serbs from northern Kosovo have been brought in for questioning in recent days and later released.

What comes next

What follows will not come from the field but from the laboratory. Identifying the remains requires forensic medical and DNA analysis, a process measured in weeks and months, so the victims’ names will not be known once the excavations are finished.

The other deadline is shorter and more precise. The one month detention period is counted from the date of arrest, so the first ruling on extending the measure for the two men arrested on July 28 falls in the last days of August, and for the third man in early September. That is when it will become clear whether the prosecution has enough to take the case further, or whether what has been dug up in the mountains above Zubin Potok is, for now, all it has.