For nearly 80 years, the descendants of Nazmi Uruci have been searching for his body. Nazmi was born in northern Albania in 1904 and served as a customs officer during the brief reign of King Zog, the first and last reigning monarch of Albania.
After the fall of the monarchy, the communists were ready to take power in the country and ordered the “disposal” of those who worked for the previous regime.
Uruci and two friends were rounded up in October 1944 and executed without trial. His remains are still nowhere to be found, and the state refuses to admit that he was murdered or help find his grave.
“All the loss of life is painful, but there is no grave, no justice, no motivation, only 40 years old… We need to regain dignity,” the victim’s nephew Hysen Daci told EURACTIV Albanian partner Exit.
Uruci’s case is far from unique. During Enver Hoxha’s reign after World War II, many more people went missing. More than 6000 people are still missing.
Albania was ruled by the Communist Party from 1944 to 1991. It is widely regarded as one of the most brutal and isolated regimes in history, leading to executions, murders, starvation and inhumane prisons and forced labor camps for up to 25,000 people. Thousands more have been tortured, imprisoned and persecuted.
No action taken by Albania
The European Commission stated in its recent report that last year, despite repeated warnings by international officials, the Albanian Prosecutor’s Office failed to conduct any investigation into the communist regime’s missing persons case. Country report.
The committee pointed out that such failures and the small number of resolved cases were “partly due to” lack of capacity and resources. They called for political will to establish an effective cooperation mechanism between relevant agencies and raise public awareness of this issue.
In the search for missing persons, many files have been deposited in the hands of prosecutors, but many of them have made little progress. Some projects submitted by the Western Balkans of the International Commission on Missing Persons have not made progress in more than three years.
Earlier this year, the person in charge of the program, Matthew holiday, Said that the Albanian government has a legal obligation to account for missing persons.
Then in August, OSCE Said that more than 6,000 people are still missing. This is a “serious violation of human rights” and “deeply and continuously affects the families of missing persons who desire to have graves to mourn their loved ones.”
Justice is still out of reach
Neither the Albanian State nor the Socialist Party-direct descendants of the Communist Party-have formally apologized for more than 50 years of atrocities.
There is no official memorial for the victims, and the students know very little about what happened over the years. Those who kill, murder and torture innocent people are rarely convicted.
Some prominent Communists, including those who work in the judicial and official roles of the regime, still hold positions of power today. In 2020, Agon Tufa, a communist criminologist, was forced to seek asylum in Switzerland with his family after he said the former communists were a threat to his life.
The prosecutor is not interested
After the EU called for justice, Albanian prosecutor Socorstoyan Tell local media Prosecutors have no role in cases of disappearance or execution.He explained that it was because they were “punished in accordance with the law at the time”, but he admitted Some prosecutors refused to deal with cases that fell on their desks.
The prosecutor also stated that the statute of limitations prevents prosecutors from investigating disappearances that occurred decades ago.
Prime Minister Edi Rama stated that his government “has done everything we can” to expose the stories of those who suffered during the communist period and continue to suffer today.
in a Extraordinary speech In August, at the opening ceremony of the exhibition of former national security documents titled “Sigurimi in its own words”, Rama said:
“All the stories of persecution and torture from the dictatorship are not just personal suffering, but also suffering stories deeply rooted in the conscience of society. Among other generations, born in the communist period but able to build another life People who were born in the post-communist era, communism is a story learned from books or old people, but not a fact of life.”
“We have done our best, although this is certainly not enough to expose this story.”
In addressing the missing victims, he did not promise to find them.
Voice of the missing in Albania
In the absence of political, judicial and economic will in the country, the EU’s appeal seems to have fallen on deaf ears. At the same time, the families of the victims continued to suffer.
Sazan Velaj was both sad and angry when she spoke.
“I was 7 years old when they killed my father. We worked very hard, but we still couldn’t find him. Finding his father’s remains is very important to the family. There is nothing more important than that.”
