There are photographs that need no explanation.
One of them is the photograph of a refrigerated truck pulled from the waters of the Danube in the spring of 1999. It is an ordinary-looking vehicle, but the story behind it is one of the most painful pieces of evidence from the war in Kosovo.

Inside that truck were the bodies of dozens of Kosovo Albanians.

They were not simply bodies.

They were people who had names, families, homes, memories, and lives of their own. Left behind were parents, wives, children, brothers, and sisters who for a long time did not know what had happened to their loved ones.

The story of the refrigerated truck in the Danube is, at the same time, the story of a crime, the story of an attempt to conceal its traces, and the story of a pain that is still felt today.

Because this story does not end at the Danube.

It continues in the mass graves of Batajnica.

And it continues today in the families of the missing.

A truck that emerged from the Danube

In the spring of 1999, as the war in Kosovo was taking an increasingly tragic toll, a refrigerated truck was found in the Danube River, on the territory of Serbia, near Kladovo.
Its discovery was made public later, and in 2001 the new Serbian authorities established a working group to investigate the case. The investigation linked the bodies found in the truck to Albanian victims of the war in Kosovo.¹

The truck was connected to Prizren. This was one of the clues that helped establish the origin of the victims.

But the importance of this event lies not only in the fact that dozens of bodies were found in a truck.

Its importance also lies in what happened afterward.

According to testimony presented before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the bodies were removed from the truck and then transported to a facility of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Batajnica, near Belgrade. The truck itself was destroyed in Petrovo Selo, near Kladovo.¹

So this was not simply an abandoned truck in a river.

Behind it was an organized operation to move and conceal the bodies.

When the victims became evidence that had to be erased
In any crime, the victim’s body is one of the most important pieces of evidence.
It can reveal how the killing occurred. It can help identify the victim. It can lead to the crime scene. It can provide answers to the family.

Therefore, the removal of the bodies was not only a horrific act against the victims.

It also had another dimension: the concealment of evidence.

The documents and judgments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established that during the spring of 1999, the bodies of Kosovo Albanians were transported from Kosovo to the territory of Serbia and buried in mass graves. The court described this as part of a coordinated operation to remove evidence of crimes committed in Kosovo.²

This is one of the reasons why the story of the refrigerated truck remains so important.

It shows that an attempt to conceal a crime can extend far beyond the place where the crime was committed.

Bodies can be moved.

Locations can be changed.

Traces can be erased.

But a crime does not disappear simply because someone attempts to conceal it.

From the Danube to Batajnica

After the bodies were removed from the truck, their trail led to Batajnica.
Batajnica, on the outskirts of Belgrade, would become one of the most important locations in uncovering the fate of the victims of the war in Kosovo.

Following the fall of Slobodan Milošević’s regime, investigators from the Tribunal monitored the exhumation of mass graves in Batajnica and other locations in Serbia.³

The scale of the operation was horrific.

At the Batajnica mass grave site, the remains of 744 people were identified.⁴ At other locations in Serbia, hundreds more bodies were discovered.

In a 2011 statement, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said that in 2001 the remains of 744 people were exhumed from the SAJ center in Batajnica, 61 people in Petrovo Selo, and 84 in the area of Lake Perućac.⁵

The figures are shocking.

But even these numbers should not allow us to forget what lies behind them.

744 is not simply a number.

They are hundreds of lives.

Hundreds of families.

Hundreds of stories.

Hundreds of people who had names.

The graves that were supposed to remain hidden

For a time, the places where the victims had been buried were unknown to the public.
But the earth cannot conceal a crime forever.

Forensic experts, international investigators, and identification specialists worked to exhume and identify the remains.

Modern genetic identification methods were also used in this process.

For families, identification was not merely a technical procedure.

It was the moment when a person without a name was finally returned to an identity.

Someone finally learned where his father was.

Someone else learned where his brother was.

Someone else learned where her son was.

And for many families, the answer was both relief and pain.

Because learning the truth about the death of a loved one does not remove the pain.

But it brings an end to uncertainty.

For families, the war did not end in 1999

This is where the story of the refrigerated truck connects directly to one of the deepest wounds of Kosovo’s society: the missing persons.
For many families, the war did not end when the weapons fell silent.

It continued in the form of waiting.

Waiting for news.

Waiting for testimony.

Waiting for an excavation.

Waiting for identification.

Waiting for an answer.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has repeatedly emphasized that the issue of missing persons in Kosovo remains an open wound. On 30 August 2024, the ICRC stated that, more than 25 years after the conflict, the families of more than 1,600 missing persons were still waiting for answers about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.⁶

This figure should make us pause.

Because behind it are not 1,600 abstract stories.

They are families.

And behind every family is an absence.

What does it mean to have a missing loved one?
To lose someone is painful.
But not knowing what happened to them is another kind of pain.

The family cannot complete the process of mourning.

There is no grave.

There is no certain date.

There is no place where a flower can be laid.

There is no final answer.

That is why the issue of missing persons is not simply a matter of statistics, documents, or administrative procedures.

It is a human issue.

It is a matter of dignity.

It is a matter of the families’ right to know.

The ICRC has emphasized precisely this: families of missing persons have the right to know what happened to their loved ones.⁷

That right does not expire with time.

Batajnica and Kosovo’s memory
When Batajnica is mentioned, for many people it is not simply a location near Belgrade.
It is a symbol.

A symbol of an attempt to conceal what had happened in Kosovo.

The investigations of the Tribunal documented that the bodies of Kosovo Albanians were transported by trucks to Batajnica and buried in mass graves on Serbian territory.⁸

According to the findings of the court in the case against Vlastimir Đorđević, this transportation and secret burial of bodies was part of a coordinated operation to remove evidence of crimes committed by Serbian forces against Kosovo Albanians.⁵

This is why Batajnica must remain part of Kosovo’s historical memory.

Not for revenge.

But for truth.

Not to fuel hatred.

But to prevent denial.

Because remembrance is not revenge.

Remembrance is responsibility.

Justice does not bring the victims back, but it documents the truth

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia addressed the concealment of bodies in proceedings concerning crimes committed in Kosovo.
In 2011, Vlastimir Đorđević was found guilty of crimes committed against Kosovo Albanians and sentenced to 27 years in prison. The court found that the transportation of bodies from Kosovo and their burial in mass graves in Serbia was part of a coordinated operation to conceal evidence.⁵

A judicial judgment cannot bring the victims back.

It cannot return parents to their children.

It cannot undo the years lost by families.

But justice has another function.

It documents history.

It places responsibility where it belongs.

And it creates a record of facts that must not disappear.

Numbers have names

In public discourse, we often speak in numbers.
Dozens of victims.

Hundreds of bodies.

More than 1,600 missing persons.

But behind every number is a human being.

Therefore, when we speak about the victims of the refrigerated truck, we must remember that we are not talking about “cargo.”

We are talking about people.

When we speak about Batajnica, we are not talking only about a mass grave.

We are talking about people who were taken from their homeland and hidden far from their families.

And when we speak about the missing, we are not talking about a statistic.

We are talking about people who are still waiting for an answer.

A wound that does not heal through forgetting

More than two decades after the war, time has changed many things.
The children of the war have grown up.

Some parents who waited for news have died without receiving an answer.

Some families have continued their lives with an empty chair at the table.

But time has not erased the question.

Where are the missing?

This question remains one of the greatest moral and human obligations of our society.

The answer must not be sought only for the families.

It must also be sought for history.

Because a society that has not found all of its missing persons cannot consider the history of the war completely closed.

The Danube did not drown the truth

In the end, the photograph of the refrigerated truck should make us think about something greater than the event itself.
It should remind us how far an attempt to conceal a crime can go.

The bodies were taken from Kosovo.

They were transported through the territory of Serbia.

They were thrown into the waters of the Danube.

They were recovered.

They were transported again.

They were hidden in mass graves.

An attempt was made to make them disappear.

But they did not disappear.

The traces remained.

The testimonies remained.

The graves spoke.

The investigations spoke.

The courts spoke.

And above all, the families did not remain silent.

Therefore, from Kosovo to the Danube, from the Danube to Batajnica, the traces of the crime remained.

They remained as evidence of the victims.

They remained as evidence of the families.

They remained as evidence of a dark period in our history.

And they remained as an obligation to future generations.

Because the missing are not simply people who have not yet been found.

They are part of our collective memory.

They are the names that are still waiting to be completed.

They are the families waiting for a grave.

They are the stories waiting for their ending.

And as long as one family still does not know where its loved one is buried, the search cannot end.

The truth can be delayed. It can be hidden. It can be moved. But it cannot be buried forever.

The Danube did not take the truth with it.

It came to light.

And our duty is not to allow it to fall silent again.

Footnotes,

1. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Prosecution Case – Kosovo, testimony of Dragan Karleuša concerning the refrigerated truck, the transportation of bodies to Batajnica, and the destruction of the truck in Petrovo Selo.

2. ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vlastimir Đorđević, judicial materials concerning the operation to conceal the bodies of Kosovo Albanians and their transportation to mass graves in Serbia.

3. ICTY, Investigations, documentation concerning investigations and exhumations of mass graves in Batajnica and Petrovo Selo.

4. ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vlastimir Đorđević, Judgment, 23 February 2011, paragraph 989 and following: the remains of 744 people were identified in Batajnica.

5. ICTY, Vlastimir Đorđević Convicted for Crimes in Kosovo, 23 February 2011. The judgment documented the arrival of trucks carrying bodies at the SAJ center in Batajnica and the exhumation of 744 people in 2001. Đorđević was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

6. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), The Missing: The wound that never heals, 30 August 2024. The ICRC stated that the families of more than 1,600 people missing from the Kosovo conflict were still awaiting answers concerning the fate of their loved ones.

7. ICRC, Missing persons, still an open wound in Kosovo, 26 April 2023. The document emphasizes the right of families to know what happened to their missing relatives.

8. ICTY, Vlastimir Đorđević Convicted for Crimes in Kosovo. The judgment documents the arrival of trucks carrying bodies at the SAJ center in Batajnica and the exhumation of 744 people.

Prishtina,30.08.2026