Bones found at Muslim cemetery in North Mitrovica
Kosovo police say the exhumation took place on October 27 and the remains were sent for DNA analysis at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Bone remains were found at the Muslim cemetery in North Mitrovica on Tuesday, October 27. Kosovo police listed the find in their report for the previous 24 hours, published on October 28, and linked it to the period 1998-1999.
The exhumation order was carried out by the Kosovo police Sector for Investigating Persons Missing During the War, in coordination with the Kosovo Institute of Forensic Medicine. The remains were transferred to the institute for further examination.
What is known about the location and identity?
Police handled the case under the designation NN, meaning an unidentified person. They did not specify the exact location of the exhumation or give any further information about identity.
Somewhat more was said by Agron Ljimani, chair of the Kosovo government commission on missing persons. He told Radio Free Europe that the digging took place at a site inside the Muslim cemetery and continued excavations carried out on October 20. The remains were sent for the necessary examinations, including DNA analysis, “in order to establish identity”. Ljimani added that, depending on the results of the forensic medical examinations:
“the location will be of interest for further checks and actions within the process of clarifying the fate and whereabouts of persons forcibly disappeared during the war in Kosovo”
The sources do not say when the results of the analyses are expected.
What happened at the same cemetery before?
The cemetery has been a search site before. A team from the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pristina dug at the Muslim cemetery in North Mitrovica on April 29, 2021, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., under a court order. The trigger was information that the body of a person who went missing in the 1999 conflict was buried right at the cemetery entrance, not far from the road.
The institute’s anthropologist, Diton Haljiti, said at the time that after hours of searching no body had been found and that “we found nothing”. The excavation ended shortly before 1 p.m. Haljiti stressed that a new court order was needed for any further digging at the cemetery. The available accounts do not show whether this year’s work is at the same spot as in 2021.
Zubin Potok and the numbers on the missing
Radio Free Europe reports that the excavations in North Mitrovica followed finds in Zubin Potok, in northern Kosovo, where three mass graves were uncovered with the remains of at least 23 people. Authorities have identified the first three victims, who belong to the so-called group of intellectuals: 23 Albanian activists, professionals and public figures from the Mitrovica area who went missing in the Zubin Potok area on April 19, 1999. Kosovo has already arrested several people in connection with the killing of civilians from that group. None of the sources links the North Mitrovica find to that group.
According to the Kosovo Institute for Crimes Committed During the War, 1,577 people are still listed as missing from the 1998-1999 war, while a total of 12,230 war victims have been documented. Whether the bones from the Mitrovica cemetery get a name depends on the DNA analyses at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
