The director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Kosovo, Arsim Gërxhaliu, in an interview for Ekonomia Online said that during the recent excavations in Kizhevak, Serbia, the skulls of two people were found.

He further clarified that during Tuesday they are expected to be withdrawn, in order to take samples for DNA test.

“On Saturday, the work of the first team was completed, today at 07:00 the second team also started with three members, they will work until Saturday, so six days a week they work. Anyway, we will have work in the next week and depending on the problems that may arise in the field, it may happen that it is extended until it is completely finished.

So far, after removing a layer of soil and stones, two skulls and at least two people have appeared on the surface, for whom they should be withdrawn and a forensic inspection should be done and DNA samples should be taken “, said Gërxhaliu .

Gërxhaliu says that there are still two weeks of work regarding the excavations in this part and that the number of bodies that are suspected to be there is not known.

“We have work for two more weeks, in terms of number I do not prefer to say, but I can say that the Serbian side, which says 14 times and 16 times, but we must know that this group belongs to Rezalla group, which is related with the part found in 2014 in Rudnica, even from two new identifications belong to that group that was an earlier investigation of ours that we suspected, so the same has been confirmed. “And we also have a reunion, because half of the body of the case submitted earlier has now come out in Kizhevak.”

Since starting work in Kizhevak, Gërxhaliu confirms that a team of four people have made a detailed field inspection, reports EO.

“Yes, last week we started working in Kizhevak, we were a team of four members, two forensic scientists, an anthropologist and a forensic photographer. The first day we did the de-conservation of the terrain, there were five layers of geoplastic measures, which we placed in December to preserve the terrain and not to move, so a detailed control of their removal was done and the first day a little we waste time until the tool for 3D measurement of bone parts is assembled ”.

“We know that somewhere in a thickness of four meters there are mortal remains, because they were thrown by truck and there was a scattering of bone parts and it is normal that every iron bone part should be measured and be in the program”, concluded Gërxhaliu.

Excavations for the remains of the victims of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo, resumed on May 5, continued on Monday in Kizhevak, Raska.

On Saturday, the location of the mass grave was also visited by a senior delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross from Geneva, accompanied by representatives of the two delegations within the Working Group on Missing Persons.

Samples of bones exhumed over the past year from a mass grave in Kizhevak and sent for DNA analysis have been confirmed to belong to the victims of the war in Kosovo.

This was announced today by Prime Minister Albin Kurti, commemorating the massacres in Krelan and Rrezalla on their 22nd anniversary, Zeri.info reports.

Kurti said that the mass grave in Kizhevak, Serbia is related to the mass grave in Rudnica and expects that other people, the victims of the Rrezala massacre who are on the list of missing persons, be found in Kizhevak.

Kurti’s full article:

The bone remains, which were exhumed in Serbia’s Kizhevak mass grave last year, have been sent for DNA analysis to the International Commission on Missing Persons – ICMP. This is what the coordinator of the Government Commission for Missing Persons, Kushtrim Gara, told Radio Kosova.

Excavations in Serbia’s Kizhevak, which resulted in the discovery of bone remains last year, have been halted due to climatic conditions. Meanwhile, samples of these bone remains have been sent for DNA analysis to the International Commission on Missing Persons. So says Kushtrim Gara, coordinator of the Government Commission on Missing Persons.

“They have been sent for DNA analysis to the Government Commission for Missing Persons. We are waiting for the DNA results to be returned very soon and to see the possibility of how we will proceed further “, Gara emphasized for Radio Kosova.

The race clarified that excavations in Kisevak will resume immediately as soon as atmospheric conditions improve. He said he expects work to continue at the end of March.

“Continuation of excavations and exhumation of mortal remains, which are in this location, sending them for DNA analysis and their repatriation to the Republic of Kosovo,” he added.

According to Gara, during 2020, nine locations were processed in Kosovo, where 11 bone remains of war victims were found and exhumed. Meanwhile, during February of this year, there was an assessment excavation inside the cemetery of the city of Gjakova, where the mortal remains of a war victim were found.

“City cemetery spaces have been used by Serbian forces to bury victims and lose track,” Gara said.

He announced that two more orders have been provided for some marked locations in the territory of the country.

Otherwise, from the middle of this month will be held a meeting of forensic experts, where the topic will be the location of the mass grave in Kizhevak.