The mass grave in Makoc/Makovac, seven kilometres north of Pristina, was discovered in July 1999, immediately after the war ended in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanian residents of Makoc/Makovac, who had been expelled from their homes by Serbian forces, returned to their village after the arrival in Kosovo of the NATO peacekeeping force, KFOR. They saw scattered bones and decomposing bodies buried in shallow graves around the village’s main graveyard.
The location where most of the bodies were found, next to the road, now has a memorial area with the graves of 115 victims from the village. The village was attacked several times by Yugoslav forces and there was a massacre on April 21, 1999, when almost 100 people died. They were killed on the road by Serbian forces while trying to flee the capital. The youngest victim of this massacre was an eight-year-old girl, Fortesa Rusinovci, while the oldest was a 97-year-old woman, Emine Visoka.
“Call it the highway of hell,” the Los Angeles Times reported from Makoc/Makovac on July 5, 1999, a couple of days after villagers returned to their homes.
“The smell is everywhere, emanating from numerous homes, at least three mass grave sites and fallow fields overgrown with wildflowers,” the newspaper reported.
“In each house, the refugees find evidence that is impossible to ignore. There is a living room dominated by a pile of ashes in the shape of a body, marking the spot where a man was rolled in blankets, doused with gasoline and burned alive. There is a wall riddled with bullet holes; Serbian police are said to have executed men there who were kneeling,” the report continued.
So far, no indictment has been filed for the killings.