Pristina obstructing search for missing persons - conference

BELGRADE - The issue of missing persons in the wake of the 1999 war in Kosovo-Metohija remains current for Serbian state authorities, but the search for those missing has been bogged down by insufficient engagement by the Pristina provisional institutions, the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Kosovo-Metohija said at a conference titled Waiting for the Truth and Justice for Over a Quarter of a Century.

The head of the Serbian government Department for Missing Persons Ljiljana Krstic said the work of a task force on missing persons, chaired by the Red Cross, had been stalled for about three years due to obstructions by Pristina.

She said a declaration on missing persons had been agreed in Brussels recently and that a joint commission was due to be set up to implement it.

"We will keep working in the format of the task force for missing persons. So I sincerely hope that, now that our tasks have been agreed, in the coming period we will carry on from where we have left off. That implies that Pristina will search locations and exhume mortal remains in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija. That it will be working more intensively on the remains that are in morgues, of which now there are about 350, including around 80 people who are certainly Serbs," Krstic said.