It took Kosovo 9,909 days to document 12,230 war victims

More than 27 years after the end of the war, Kosovo has published its first institutional list of documented victims. It includes 12,230 people killed, forcibly disappeared and died as a result of the war up to June 1999. The list remains preliminary and will be updated with new data, while families and institutions are invited to contribute additional documents and testimonies.

It has taken Kosovo nearly three decades to document the victims of the war.

On Wednesday, 9,909 days after the liberation from Serbia, the Institute for War Crimes in Kosovo (IKKL) published a preliminary list of those killed, those who disappeared forcibly, and those who died as a result of the war. Based on it, 11,407 people were killed, 242 died as a result of the war, and 1,578 people remain forcibly disappeared. 

The preliminary list includes a total of 13,227 killed, forcibly disappeared and those who died as a result of the war, of whom 12,230 until June 1999, and 997 after this period.

Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who participated in the presentation of the report, left open the possibility of corrections, saying that the list is not final.

"So, it does not mean that the work is finished. It means that the Institute will continue to update it whenever new documents or evidence are obtained. This is the only way to build a database that is institutional and that stands the test of time and serves the generations that will come after us," Kurti said.

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He called on the families of the victims, public institutions, organizations and any citizen who possesses relevant documents or information to cooperate with the Institute. 

"Any new information will be treated seriously and according to the same professional methodology," Kurti said. "Because without documentation there is no memory. Without memory there is no justice. And without justice there can be no lasting peace."

Based on the list, 11,408 people lost their lives as a direct result of war actions – murders, executions, massacres, bombings and other forms of violence. This constitutes 86.2 percent of the total documented casualties.

There are 1,578 people who have been forcibly disappeared. This list includes people whose fate remains unclear and for whom there is credible evidence that the disappearance is related to the circumstances of the war.

The number of people who died as a result of the war is 241. This list includes people who suffered wounds or direct consequences of the war, which caused death during or after the end of the war.

Atdhe Hetemi, director of the Institute of War Crimes in Kosovo, said that after the establishment of the Institute, in November 2023, it immediately began harmonizing the data that existed on people killed, those forcibly disappeared and those who died as a result of the war, but also on other crimes such as massacres, mass graves and so on. 

"As a result, the Institute, as an institutional response, has begun the standardized process of data verification and validation. So, not the technical merging of existing lists, but the individual identification, comparison, verification and validation of each person killed, forcibly disappeared or dead as a result of the war," said Hetemi.

Preliminary list:

Based on the list, 1,242 victims are under the age of 17, while 1,949 are over the age of 65. Most victims are aged 31-50 – 4,080 of them. 

"If we analyze based on age groups, we notice that 57.5 percent of the people included in the list belong to the age group of 18-50, respectively the working age population. The most vulnerable groups that are part of this list are children from 0-17 years old and people over 65 years old. The data shows that the total number of children who lost their lives during the war in Kosovo aged 0-17 is 1,241. If this data is analyzed based on ethnicity, we see that the number of Albanian children was 1,156," said Hetemi.

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And, the acting prime minister emphasized that the report represents people, lives, families and history, which cannot be reduced to numbers, but which the state has an obligation to document with accuracy, dignity and responsibility.

"The weight of crimes committed against children is particularly heavy. The report documents that in the age group from 0 to 17 years old there are: 1,047 children killed; 94 died as a result of the conditions of war; while the fate and location of 100 children who disappeared by force is still unknown", said Kurti. "The murder of over a thousand children, beyond being a tragic statistic, is a deep wound of our society. It is a permanent indictment against the barbarity of war and an obligation for our state, that the truth be documented, justice be sought and memory be preserved".

He stressed that the data also shows the extraordinary intensity of violence, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide during the spring of 1999.

“During the months of March and June of that year, 9,948 people were killed, which constitutes about 81.3% of all victims documented in this report, whose total number is 12,230,” Kurti said. “This fact speaks for itself. It testifies to the horror that the civilian population experienced during the peak phase of the war. These figures, these dear people who were killed, oblige us to keep the memory alive and strong, and justice to remain an unceasing demand.”

Skenderaj is the municipality with the most victims. 1,279 victims were recorded as being born in this municipality, of which 1,109 were killed, 103 are missing and 67 died as a result of the war.

Skenderaj is followed by Gjakova with 1,222 victims, then Drenas with 938 victims, Rahovec with 924, Peja 761, Mitrovica 671, Suhareka 657, Prizren 648, Podujevo 602 and Klina with 536 victims.

"8,236 cases or over 60 percent of all documented cases are concentrated in these 10 municipalities," said Hetemi, who also provided statistics for the regions.

"The most affected regions are the Gjakova region, Mitrovica, then Pristina to the Gjilan region, which is one of the least affected regions," he said. "The four most affected regions account for over 73 percent of the cases."

Kurti said that this first institutional list is the result of the Institute's work to fulfill its responsibility towards the victims of the war, their families and the country's history.

"For more than a quarter of a century, the documentation of war victims has been done by various institutions, local and international organizations, researchers and individuals. Each of them has made an important contribution to preserving the facts and documenting the war. The Government of the Republic of Kosovo appreciates this work. The Institute was established precisely on this basis. Not to replace what others have done over the years, but to verify and institutionalize it," said the acting Prime Minister.

The report includes only three categories of victims, which do not constitute the entirety of war victims in Kosovo. Institute representatives said that other categories will be addressed in separate phases of documentation. 

The list includes those victims who were born, lived, or had a place of residence in the territory of Kosovo during the war, suffered fatal wounds, or disappeared in the territory of Kosovo in circumstances directly related to the war, lost their lives as a direct result of wounds received during the war, and based on verified documentation, have a direct connection to the events of the war in Kosovo.