Kosovo

The Kosovo War broke up in 1998 between Yugoslavia (the Serbians authorities) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (the Kosovo Albanians separatists). The KLA was formed in the early 1990s to fight against the discrimination of ethnic Albanians by the Serbian authorities which started after the suppression of Kosovo’s autonomy and other discriminatory policies against Albanians by Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. In early 1998, KLA attacked Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo that resulted in an increased presence of Serb paramilitaries and regular forces who subsequently began pursuing a campaign of retribution targeting KLA sympathizers.

On March 25, 1999, at about 4 o’clock in the morning, police forces consisting of military and paramilitary Serbians arrived near the village of Krusha e Vogël in tanks and armored cars. The Servian forces marched through the village joined by Serbian villagers and started to burn the houses. The villagers of Krusha e Vogël looked for a shelter in a house in the suburb of the village and stayed a night together, hoping the Serbian forces leave the village. On the following day, March 26,1999, at midday, the Servian forces lead by armed Serbian villagers surrounded the house where the Albanian villagers were hiding together. They instructed the women and the children under 12 years old to head to Albania, but the other people were obliged to remain under arrest. The mothers and girlfriends begged the local Serbians, who had been their neighbors the day before, to free the others but they forcefully separated them from the loved ones. After the children and the women were obliged to leave to Albania, the Serbians took the documents of all men and children above 13 years old, and ordered them to go into another house. 109 persons were ordered to enter the house with two rooms and a hall. Then the Serbians forces started to shoot them with automatic machine guns. After shooting, they burnt the house with the dead bodies inside. But there were 6 of them who were wounded by shots but alive and managed to escape from the burning house. After burning the house with the dead, the Serbian forces apparently took away the bodies. Only two persons were found buried. As of year 2005, 16 bodies were found and identified by DNA test. Meanwhile, no-one knows what happened to the other 95 persons. There are therefore still 95 persons registered as missing. In the village of the Krusha e Vogël, 70% of males from the age of 13 years old to the old man of 77 were killed or are missing. This was the greatest massacre to have occurred in Kosovo in terms of the percentage. As a consequence, the village has 82 widows and 145 orphans. Ten families are without any male at home. The remaining families have lost between 1 to 9 male family members. Out of 145 houses in the village, only 8 were not burned.

During the Kosovo war, about 12,000 people were killed and 1.4 million Kosovo Albanians were displaced. After 25 years, as of 2025, still about 1,600 are missing in Kosovo.