Twenty-six years ago, the world learned the name of Recak, a small village that few had heard of. There, genocide was being committed by Serbian police and military forces, who killed 45 Albanian civilians, among them children, women and the elderly. All documented, but Serbia still denies the massacre of January 15, 1999, which marked a major turning point in the history of Kosovo.

Senior Serbian officials, starting with President Aleksandar Vucic, have consistently denied the massacre, calling it a “staged” and “lie.” This is not new, as politicians in Serbia have historically attempted to distort the truth in the Balkans.

But there are international reports and archival sources about the horror that occurred in this village, says History professor Selim Bezeraj.

“Pashic too, who was the leader of Serbia much earlier than him [Vucic], has denied the crimes committed by Serbs in Kosovo. We also have the denial of the crimes committed by Serbs in Kosovo during the World War II. Rankovic and Tito deny it too. And of course the latter are complicit in the crimes in Kosovo. They were part of Milosevic’s criminal government 26 years ago and of course they deny it, but the facts are different, the arguments are different, because they are the ones who committed all these crimes and this massacre of January 15 in Recak. In Serbian politics, it is always a practice to cover up the fact with lies, with falsification,” says Bezeraj.

The first to tell the world that a crime against humanity was being committed in this village of Shtime was the then head of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo, William Walker.

He visited Recak the day after the massacre and after seeing the bodies of civilians said that “this is a grave crime against humanity”.

The university professor says that what happened in the village of Recak was carried out with a clear plan by Serbia.

“The Racak massacre is one of the worst massacres that has happened under the Serbian regime in Kosovo. This massacre was carried out entirely on the basis of the plans that Serbia has always had against Kosovo and against the Albanians in Kosovo. Historically, it is documented that the crimes committed by Serbia are planned, they were not committed spontaneously, therefore the Racak massacre is one of those committed by Serbia…Add to this that both the intellectual and the religious figures were involved, because the blessing of these crimes was given by the church, which is a unique case in the world that has never happened before, because they characterize the church as something national”, he declares.

Twenty-six years after this horrific event, no one has been directly convicted for the crimes in Recak.

The Hague Tribunal for War Crimes in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia in 2003 issued an indictment against several Serbian superiors for crimes committed against the Albanian population in Kosovo in 1999.

The director of the Kosovo Justice Institute (IKD), Ehat Miftaraj, says that those who ordered the killing of Albanian civilians have never been convicted.

“We have a verdict in The Hague, which convicts insignificant people regarding the Recak massacre. But we as IKD have repeatedly said, it is true that it is very important to prosecute the perpetrators of these criminal acts, but if we had an institutional approach, if we had a much more comprehensive approach. We all know, and the Special Prosecution also knows, that the massacres that occurred in Kosovo during the war, it is clearly known who was the police commander, the commander of the military forces, the commander of the paramilitary forces, meaning the paramilitary criminal groups that committed the crimes in Kosovo. And if we had more indictments against the chain of command, in a way the accountability and responsibility of the persons who gave orders in these massacres would increase”, says Miftari.

Amer Alija from the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo too says that justice has not yet been provided for the victims of Recak.

“There has been little or no justice provided for the civilian victims who were killed 26 years ago in the Recak massacre. Of course, one of the problems or challenges here is the lack of cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia, and the people who committed these crimes are not found in Kosovo. Recently, the Special Prosecution, with the entry into force of the Law on Trial in Absence, has filed several indictments in absentia and last year. In December of last year, we also had the first verdict in absentia for war crimes committed in the Municipality of Shtime. Other indictments related to the Recak massacre have not been processed in the Kosovo courts,” says Alija.

In the early morning of January 15, 1999, children, adults and the elderly were brutally killed, including an elderly woman whose body has not yet been found.

The grave incident in Recak prompted an international response, with NATO deciding to attack Serbian military and police targets – the bombings lasted 78 days, which ended on June 10, 1999, when United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 was adopted.

After that, over 800,000 Kosovo Albanians – forcibly expelled, began to return to their homes. The figures speak of over 13,000 civilians killed during the 1998/99 war by Serbian forces and over 6,000 forcibly disappeared, 1,600 of whom are still missing.