Kosovo's missing persons

The 50th, jubilee edition closed the hard year of 2020 differently: over three days, 28–30 December 2020, BarCamp Ferizaj published three recorded interviews on social media, one a day, about the people who went missing in the 1998–1999 war in Kosovo: a personal account, the work of institutions, and social and cultural awareness. The aim was to start a personal and public conversation on a subject that is part of everyday discourse but has not been dealt with as it should.

Bajram Qerkinaj, co-founder and executive director of the Resource Centre for Missing Persons, founded in 2016, talked about how the Centre began and is organised, the cooperation between families of the missing across ethnic lines, institutional support and the work of Kosovo's institutions to find out what happened to the missing. He also told the personal story of his son's disappearance in the war; his remains have still not been found.

Arsim Gërxhaliu, director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, where he has worked since 1999, first under the UNMIK international mission and, after Kosovo's independence, as its director, talked about his 21 years of work to establish the fate of missing persons, the results of Kosovo's institutions and collective memory, and experiences from identifying remains.

Besim Ugzmajli, artistic director of the “Adriana” City Theatre in Ferizaj and a film and theatre director with many national and international awards, talked about public awareness of the missing, art's responsibility to address the issue and what the arts have done about it so far.

Organised by BarCamp Ferizaj's team of young activists, under the umbrella of Iniciativa për Progres (INPO), in partnership with forumZFD (Kosovo Programme), with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).