Zubin Potok Dig Yields Remains of 23 on Missing Persons Day
UNMIK says more than 1,500 people are still missing from the Kosovo conflict, and digs near Zubin Potok have recovered remains of at least 23 people, now sent to The Hague for DNA testing.
International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is marked today, August 30, and UNMIK says more than 1,500 people are still listed as missing in connection with the Kosovo conflict, 27 years after the war ended. What sets this year apart are the excavations near Zubin Potok, where at least 23 bodies were found during August, and the Institute of Forensic Medicine has sent the first bone samples to a DNA laboratory in The Hague.
In a statement marking International Missing Persons Day, UNMIK said:
Each case represents a person whose family is still waiting for answers.
The United Nations mission in Kosovo said victims and their families must remain at the center of efforts to determine their fate. According to figures available so far, the morgue in Pristina still holds more than 300 unidentified sets of remains.
Three Sites, 23 Bodies
During 2026, excavations were carried out at three sites in the Zubin Potok municipality: two in the village of Mala Kaludra and one in Jabuka. At the first Mala Kaludra site, the remains of 13 people were found; at Jabuka, four; and at the second Mala Kaludra site, six, bringing the total to at least 23 bodies.
Valjon Hiseni of the Institute of Forensic Medicine said on August 28, during a visit by families to the Mala Kaludra site:
So far I can confirm that we have sent at least ten bone samples to the DNA laboratory in The Hague, and we hope to have the first results very soon. Only then can we talk about who is involved.
The final number of bodies, as well as the identities of those found, has not yet been established. The DNA analysis results should show whether the remains include people whose fate the Serbian side has been seeking for years.
Odalovic: Seven Years Without Serbian Delegations
Veljko Odalovic, head of the Serbian government’s Commission on Missing Persons, said 1,590 people are still listed as missing on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, more than a third of them Serbs. For that territory, he proposed searches at six sites: Dojnice, Lapusnik, Kosare, Plivocko Lake, Lugovo and Budisavci, and noted that Serbian delegations have been absent from the sites being investigated by Pristina institutions for seven years now.
Odalovic made the statement on August 28 at a conference of the Coordination of Serbian Associations of Families of Missing, Killed and Fallen Persons from the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia, held ahead of Missing Persons Day. Also taking part in the conference were Dusica Popovic, deputy commissioner for refugees and migration, Ljubomir Miladinovic, secretary general of the Red Cross of Serbia, and Mirjana Miodrag Bozin, president of the Coordination.
For the entire territory of the former Yugoslavia, Tanjug cites a figure of around 9,540 missing persons, while other sources put the number at 9,552, with Serbia accounting for a third of that total.
A Case 28 Years Old
The question of the missing from Kosovo is not limited to this year’s excavations. Radio Pristina journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic were abducted on August 21, 1998, and their fate remains unknown 28 years later. Their case stands as one of the clearest symbols of how long the issue of Kosovo’s missing has remained open, regardless of whose victims are involved.
Results from the analysis of the bone samples from Zubin Potok, sent to The Hague in late August, are expected in the coming weeks and should for the first time give a concrete answer to the question of who the recovered remains belong to.
