Pain and hope with new excavations in Kosovo

Erblin Ademi watched from afar as workers dug up recently discovered mass graves from the 1998-1999 Kosovo war. Nearly 30 years after his father's disappearance, Ademi simultaneously feared and hoped that his remains would finally be found.

Ademi was only nine years old when he last saw his father, Adem Ademi, a prominent surgeon who disappeared along with 22 other intellectuals in April 1999, just months before the end of the war. Some 1.600 people remain missing from the conflict, and their remains are believed to be scattered in unmarked mass graves. Ademi's family has endured years of agony and disappointment over the failed attempts to find his remains.

Now they are cautiously optimistic because the newly discovered graves are located near where Ademi was last seen. Excavations near the village of Kaluder e Vogel, in the northern municipality of Zubin Potok, began in late July after human remains were found there, the Associated Press reports.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said authorities believe the victims could be missing intellectuals, who are said to have been captured while trying to flee Kosovo to avoid capture by Serbian forces.

"Whenever we hear that excavations are starting, the feelings are mixed - a feeling of hope and a feeling of pain," Ademi told the AP. "No matter how many years pass, the pain will always be there ... but at the same time there has always been hope, a feeling that the truth will finally be revealed."

Among the missing in Kosovo are about 1.200 ethnic Albanians, approximately 400 ethnic Serbs and several dozen Roma, according to the human rights organization Humanitarian Law Center.

In May 2023, Serbia and Kosovo reached an agreement that included an obligation for both sides to shed light on the fate of the missing, but Kosovo and Serbia have accused each other of delaying cooperation.

"It is obvious that the authorities are not ready to cooperate," said Bekim Blakaj of the Humanitarian Law Center.

Police in Kosovo announced last month that they had arrested two ethnic Serbs on suspicion of committing war crimes related to mass graves, days before the latest excavations began. Both men remain in custody.

Several senior Serbian political and military officials have been convicted of war crimes in Kosovo by the United Nations tribunal in The Hague.

Erblin Ademi held tightly to a photo of his father holding him in his arms when he was little.

"Every human being has the right to a grave that can be visited, where they can be honored and where people can remember them," Ademi said. "We very much hope that this will be the end. No matter how long the whole process takes, we will wait until we can give them the honor they deserve."