Persons Commission

Kosovo's Institute of Forensic Medicine began a new exhumation of a suspected war grave this week in the mountain village of Koshare/Kosare in the west of the country as the authorities stepped up efforts to find around the remaining missing persons from the 1998-99 war.

The new head of Kosovo's Missing Persons Commission, Andin Hoti, understands the pain of losing a loved one in wartime - his father disappeared during the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and his body has never been found.

The head of Kosovo's Missing Persons Commission, Kushtrim Gara, told BIRN that exhumations were carried out at ten locations in Kosovo and Serbia this year and "the mortal remains of at least 11 persons, victims of the war, were found and exhumed".

His was among the first 12 bodies found in the mass grave at the Peja/Pec cemetery by Hague Tribunal experts who were searching for evidence for their indictments of Serbia's military and political leaders for war crimes in Kosovo.

The identification of the remains of the 13 Serbs, which was organised by the Croatian War Veterans Ministry, was completed on Monday at the forensic department of the Zagreb University School of Medicine.

Bosnia's Council of Ministers signed separate agreements in Sarajevo on Tuesday with the governments of Serbia and Croatia on working rules and procedures as part of a protocol intended to make the search for the remaining thousands of missing persons from the 1990s wars more effective.

Ground-penetrating radar unit. Photo: Kosovo Institute of Forensics.

In August last year, a UN expert team used ground-penetrating radar equipment in a five-day search at three locations in Kosovo - in the village of Bukosh in the Vushtrri/Vuciterna municipality, the village of Uglar in the Gjilan/Gnjilane municipality, and in Kishinca.