Radar-Aided Kosovo War Grave Search Yields No Results

A search for a possible wartime mass grave after a search using ground-penetrating radar equipment in the Kosovo village of Kishnica has failed to register the presence of human remains.

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Ground-penetrating radar unit. Photo: Kosovo Institute of Forensics.

An excavation in the village of Kishnica in the Gracanica municipality, launched after searches last year using ground-penetrating radar equipment, has found no human remains from the 1998-99 war, Kosovo’s Missing Persons Commission told BIRN.

In August last year, a UN expert team used ground-penetrating radar equipment in a five-day search at three locations in Kosovo – in the village of Bukosh in the Vushtrri/Vuciterna municipality, the village of Uglar in the Gjilan/Gnjilane municipality, and in Kishinca.

Searches were also carried out by the UN team in Jeloviste and Kisevac, near Raska in Serbia.

The data recordings were sent to an expert in Argentina for analysis and the conclusions were given to Kosovo and Serbia last month.

The analysis suggested that there were some “soil anomalies”, meaning that there was previous digging at the locations.

The head of the Kosovo government’s Missing Persons Commission, Kushtrim Gara, told BIRN that after receiving the results, excavations were immediately launched at the sites.

“Despite the indications presented in the report, the result of the excavations is negative at the first location in Kishnica. There are no mortal remains there,” Gara said.

Results of the excavations at the other sites are not yet in.

The UN used the ground-penetrating radar equipment for the first time in Kosovo and Serbia to detect the presence of bones at a depth of up to 12 metres in an attempt to locate potential grave sites.

Thousands of metres of ground were covered, mostly in hard terrain, at the five locations in Kosovo and Serbia.

A total of 1,648 people are still listed as missing from the war in Kosovo, 561 of whom are non-Albanians.

The Kosovo authorities said that if the radar method turns out to be effective, it can be used again in other searches for missing persons.

In recent years, the amount of information received about mass or individual graves from the war has decreased significantly, and the process of finding and identifying human remains has faltered.

Currently the authorities in Kosovo are only investigating information about one potential grave site, in the municipality of Skenderaj/Srbica.