Amnesty Slams UN Over Kosovo Missing

UNMIK mission headquarters in Pristina after a protective wall was vandalized by critics in July 2012

Amnesty International has criticized what it calls the failure of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to investigate the fate of civilians, mainly ethnic Serbs, still missing since the conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.

In a fresh report released on August 27, Sian Jones, Amnesty International's expert on Kosovo, said UNMIK's alleged failure to act, "has contributed to the climate of impunity prevailing in Kosovo."

Amnesty notes that some 150 complaints have been filed with UNMIK by relatives of the missing, mostly ethnic Serbs, charging the UN mission with allegedly failing to investigate the fate of missing relatives.

Although the report focuses on abductions of Kosovo Serbs, allegedly by the ethnic Albanian separatist rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Amnesty International also noted the failure to investigate alleged abductions of ethnic Albanians by Serb forces.

Based on reporting by AFP and RFE/RL