The Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, attended today the Memorial Academy on the 27th Anniversary of the Studime Massacre.<\/p>\n
On this occasion, Acting President Haxhiu said that we are gathered here today, in Studime, at the place where on May 2nd 1999, within two hours, the lives of 116 Albanian civilians were cut short.<\/p>\n
\u201c116 Albanian civilians: children, youth, women, men and elderly. Unarmed people, caught in the column of deportees arriving from the Shala region, through Sllakoc and Cecelia, towards Studime and Vushtrri. They were abandoning the besieged villages to stay alive, but their retreat was cut off by Serbian forces. An entire state had turned its military, police and paramilitary apparatus into a machine for ethnic cleansing, murder and genocide\u201d said Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n
She further said that after the May 2nd massacre, neither the horror nor the violence ended for the families of Studime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe massacre was not the end of Serbia\u2019s genocidal operation. It was one of its links. The killed were left behind. The women, children and the elderly were deported to Albania. The men separated from the column were taken to the Smrekonica prison, where they were beaten, interrogated, left in inhumane conditions and tortured. Serbia was not satisfied with the murder. It wanted to empty the country, break up the families, humiliate the survivors and leave the crime without trial. Even today, Serbia shelters war criminals and that’s how a state acts when crime is its policy\u201d, emphasized Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n
According to her, when we talk about Studime, we also talk about Nab\u00ebrgjan, where one day before, 17 Albanian civilians were killed, we also talk about Bukosh, where one day after Studime 25 men and boys were taken from the column of deportees and executed in the schoolyard, we talk about Mej\u00eb, Krush\u00eb, Izbic\u00eb, Poklek, Rezall\u00eb, Korenic\u00eb, and many other places where Serbia left people killed, left mothers without children and children without parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have lived with the absence longer than with the presence of many of your loved ones. You have lived with memories, with expectations, with many questions, which still have no answers. But you stood. You have preserved the truth when others have tried to distort it. And most importantly, you have spoken when it was necessary to testify about the crimes that Serbia has committed in our country\u201d, stated Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n
Acting President Albulena Haxhiu, in her speech to the participants, said that the state will be by your side not only on the anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be with you in collecting evidence, during the prosecution, at the court, at the archive, in public memory, in school and in diplomacy. I also feel this responsibility deeply myself, in the office I hold today, and I pledge that the Studime will not only remain in the memory of the families, but also in the daily work of institutions, including the justice institutions, so that war criminals do not go unpunished. Because Studime, in addition to the pain of the families, is part of the political history of the Republic of Kosovo,\u201d said Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n
She further said that innocent people were killed because they were Albanians and because Serbia wanted a Kosovo without Albanians, adding that today we live in the Republic of Kosovo because that project has failed.<\/p>\n
According to her, it failed because the resistance was of the people, of our people; it failed because of the liberation war, it failed because of the sacrifice of our fallen and martyrs, it failed because of the intervention of our Western allies, it failed because the will for freedom was stronger than terror.<\/p>\n
“Today, on the 27th anniversary of the Studime massacre, with humility and respect, we remember the 116 civilians killed on May 2, 1999. We remember the martyrs of Nab\u00ebrgjan. We remember the men and boys of Bukosh. We remember all those killed, forcibly disappeared, expelled, survivors, prisoners and tortured in the last war in Kosovo. We remember them because they are the foundation of our freedom. We honor them because our Republic was built upon their sacrifice. And we demand justice because without it, memory remains incomplete, family members remain burdened, and peace remains truncated”, said Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, attended today the Memorial Academy on the 27th Anniversary of the Studime Massacre. On this occasion, Acting President Haxhiu said that we are gathered here today, in Studime, at the place where on May 2nd 1999, within two hours, the lives of 116 Albanian civilians were cut short. \u201c116 Albanian civilians: children, youth, women, men and elderly. Unarmed people, caught in the column of deportees arriving from the Shala region, through Sllakoc and Cecelia, towards Studime and Vushtrri. They were abandoning the besieged villages to stay alive, but their retreat was cut off by Serbian forces. An entire state had turned its military, police and paramilitary apparatus into a machine for ethnic cleansing, murder and genocide\u201d said Acting President Haxhiu. She further said that after the May 2nd massacre, neither the horror nor the violence ended for the families of Studime. \u201cThe massacre was not the end of Serbia\u2019s genocidal operation. It was one of its links. The killed were left behind. The women, children and the elderly were deported to Albania. The men separated from the column were taken to the Smrekonica prison, where they were beaten, interrogated, left in inhumane conditions and tortured. Serbia was not satisfied with the murder. It wanted to empty the country, break up the families, humiliate the survivors and leave the crime without trial. Even today, Serbia shelters war criminals and that’s how a state acts when crime is its policy\u201d, emphasized Acting President Haxhiu. According to her, when we talk about Studime, we also talk about Nab\u00ebrgjan, where one day before, 17 Albanian civilians were killed, we also talk about Bukosh, where one day after Studime 25 men and boys were taken from the column of deportees and executed in the schoolyard, we talk about Mej\u00eb, Krush\u00eb, Izbic\u00eb, Poklek, Rezall\u00eb, Korenic\u00eb, and many other places where Serbia left people killed, left mothers without children and children without parents. \u201cYou have lived with the absence longer than with the presence of many of your loved ones. You have lived with memories, with expectations, with many questions, which still have no answers. But you stood. You have preserved the truth when others have tried to distort it. And most importantly, you have spoken when it was necessary to testify about the crimes that Serbia has committed in our country\u201d, stated Acting President Haxhiu. Acting President Albulena Haxhiu, in her speech to the participants, said that the state will be by your side not only on the anniversary. \u201cWe will be with you in collecting evidence, during the prosecution, at the court, at the archive, in public memory, in school and in diplomacy. I also feel this responsibility deeply myself, in the office I hold today, and I pledge that the Studime will not only remain in the memory of the families, but also in the daily work of institutions, including the justice institutions, so that war criminals do not go unpunished. Because Studime, in addition to the pain of the families, is part of the political history of the Republic of Kosovo,\u201d said Acting President Haxhiu. She further said that innocent people were killed because they were Albanians and because Serbia wanted a Kosovo without Albanians, adding that today we live in the Republic of Kosovo because that project has failed. According to her, it failed because the resistance was of the people, of our people; it failed because of the liberation war, it failed because of the sacrifice of our fallen and martyrs, it failed because of the intervention of our Western allies, it failed because the will for freedom was stronger than terror. “Today, on the 27th anniversary of the Studime massacre, with humility and respect, we remember the 116 civilians killed on May 2, 1999. We remember the martyrs of Nab\u00ebrgjan. We remember the men and boys of Bukosh. We remember all those killed, forcibly disappeared, expelled, survivors, prisoners and tortured in the last war in Kosovo. We remember them because they are the foundation of our freedom. We honor them because our Republic was built upon their sacrifice. And we demand justice because without it, memory remains incomplete, family members remain burdened, and peace remains truncated”, said Acting President Haxhiu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":187805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n