On 27 July 2024, the Head of the Forensic Medicine Team of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), Luisa Marinho, participated in the XVI edition of the regional Forum on Transitional Justice, supported by the European Union and organized from the 27th to the 28th July in Pristina by the Humanitarian Law Center and the Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo in partnership with different organizations.

Marinho joined the panel which focused on institutional efforts to address the issue of missing persons related to the Kosovo conflict.

Presenting the Mission's work in supporting the Kosovo Institute of Forensic Medicine (IFM) in their quest to find and identify missing persons, Marinho recalled that: “EULEX’s forensic team of international experts has been working shoulder to shoulder with IFM since the beginning of the Mission’s mandate in 2008. Today, our team continues to work together on a daily basis with the colleagues at the IFM, both in the field - in the search for missing persons, and at the laboratory at IFM – and also with the examination and identification of human remains.”

In particular, she explained the complex work behind the ongoing review process of the remains at the IFM’s morgue, remarking how: “With this review we are undertaking a strategic approach, centered around the review of the case files, the reconstruction of the history of each case and all the information that can be gathered from archives on the associated event and group of missing persons.”

She concluded by stressing how it is a shared responsibility to ensure a coordinated, integrated, multidisciplinary, and very often multi-agency response. “An effective articulation, communication and coordination between different levels of response (political, organizational and operational) is needed, without forgetting that the active involvement of concerned families needs to be at the center of the entire process.”

EULEX remains committed to supporting its counterparts at the IFM and other relevant institutions to shed light on the fate of missing persons, regardless of the circumstances of their disappearance, their ethnic, religious or national origin or any other characteristics and fulfill the right of their families and loved ones to know the truth.