Today marks the 27th anniversary of the massacre in Meja, Gjakovë, where 376 people were killed on April 27, 1999.
Twenty-seven years ago, Serbian forces surrounded the Rekë e Keqe area and the Lug of Carragojë in the municipality of Gjakova.
Within a few hours, the most horrific execution and the largest massacre of the 1998–1999 Kosovo war was carried out.
In a planned operation, all roads were blocked, leaving open only two routes leading toward Meja.
The gathering of boys and men aged between 15 and 60 began in the early morning hours.
In a horrific toll, 15 villages in the Gjakova region were targeted, with boys and men executed house by house.
Units of the Serbian army, police, Red Berets, paramilitaries, and masked neighbors formed a cordon reminiscent of the images of Srebrenica massacre, executing 376 Albanian men on what was known as the holiday marking the last Yugoslavia, created amid bloodshed through the political maneuvers of Slobodan Milošević on April 27, 1992.
That day, none of those detained managed to leave Meja alive. After the war, some of their mutilated bodies were found in mass graves across Kosovo, while there is information suggesting that others are still somewhere in Serbia.
Despite repeated requests from family members and various organizations in Kosovo for the return of their bodies from Serbia, the issue has been continuously delayed by the Serbian state and remains unresolved.
