Non-governmental organizations – Action for Human Rights (HRA), the Montenegrin Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights (CKP), the Center for Women’s and Peace Education ANIMA and the Association “Štrpci – Against Forgetting” called on Montenegro, on the occasion of the International Day of Missing Persons, to strengthen efforts to find and identify missing persons in the wars of the 1990s in cooperation with other countries in the region.
As they stated in the joint statement, according to the list of the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Montenegro, 50 persons are being sought – 38 in Kosovo, nine in Bosnia and Herzegovina and three in Croatia.
“We request that all possible grave locations be thoroughly investigated, including Lake Perućac, where the search continues for 16 of the 20 victims of the train kidnapping in Štrpci. Individually, the search continues for Sadik Ramcaj, the victim in the Kaluđerski laz case, Osmo Bajrović, the victim in the Deportacija case, and Miloš Perunović, the victim in the Lora case, as well as for persons who were victims of individual kidnappings and of disappearances in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while important progress has been made in the case of members of the Klapuh family, whose remains have been found and identified,” reads the press release provided by HRA and reported by Vijesti.
The aforementioned organizations specifically request that the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances be accepted, according to which enforced disappearance should be prescribed as a separate criminal offense, victims of enforced disappearances should be given the right to free legal aid, and the legal status of the missing and their relatives should be regulated so that they are not obliged to declare the missing person deceased.
“We also demand that the state equally compensate all families who are in the same situation as the 16 families who, based on their acquired status as civilian victims of war, have already been granted one-time compensation,” the statement added.
It is also emphasized that more than three decades after the wars in the former Yugoslavia, thousands of families are still waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones.
“Clarifying the fate of the missing is a legal and moral obligation towards the victims, their families and society as a whole, but the countries of the region do not yet show enough political will to solve this problem without further delay. Our organizations especially point to the need for a thorough search of Lake Perućac. Only four of the 20 victims of the train kidnapping in Štrpci have been found in it so far, and the lake has never been thoroughly examined. In the case of Kaluđerski laz, one victim is being searched for, Sadik Ramcaj (72), from Vrel near Istok in Kosovo, who was killed by members of the Serbian and Montenegrin Army in 1999 in the border area with the Republic of Serbia. According to testimonies, he was kept tied to a tree for days, and after he died due to abuse, his body was never found.
It is also recalled that in February 2025, Montenegro finally recognized the status of civilian victims of war by law for persons killed or missing during the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia and provided monthly compensation to their family members.
“We call on the competent authorities of Montenegro and other countries in the region to fulfill their obligations without further delay. Families of the missing have the right to know the truth, bury their loved ones with dignity and receive justice and appropriate compensation. The International Day of the Missing has been marked since 2011. It was established by Resolution A/RES/65/209 of the United Nations General Assembly to draw attention to the fate of the missing and the rights of their families to truth, justice and reparations,” the statement reads.
