12 September 2014

Today, at Merdare (Kosovo), EULEX personnel working for the Kosovo Department of Forensic Medicine (DFM) received from the Serbian authorities the repatriated remains of twenty-four (24) individuals exhumed during recent excavations in Raska. Additional evidentiary material and other documentation were also received.

The remains will be transported to the DFM Headquarters in Pristina, where the human identification work will be carried out. In addition to the identification work a number of fragments will need to be re-associated to some of the remains. Once all of this work is completed, the remains will be handed over to the families with the assistance of the Kosovo Commission on Missing Persons.

This was the second repatriation facilitated by EULEX. Until now, forty (40) individuals recovered from the mass grave in Rudnica have been repatriated to Kosovo.

To date, DFM has conducted 456 field operations, during which the remains of 413 individuals were handed over to their families. Of these, 315 were listed as missing persons.