Ambiguous loss in post war Kosovo

Pauline Boss’s ambiguous loss theory maps the process and the effects of loss in situations where the truth is unobtainable. A loss that is ambiguous has a hugely detrimental effect in that it freezes the grieving process and places a block in coming to terms with the reality of the loss and the ability to decide on future action.

Ambiguous loss afflicts thousands of people in every war. Efforts to find the missing continue for decades after the cessation of hostilities, yet we rarely hear or see anything about these long-term struggles of the civilian population in war’s aftermath.

We usually see conflicts in terms of those who have died and those who have survived, often neglecting those who fall outside those categories. Family members of the missing form an all too often ignored group for whom the horrors of war do not end once the guns have fallen silent.

Left in a situation of not knowing what happened to their relatives, for them the search for information becomes all consuming, often bringing them into conflict with those in authority around them whom they perceive to be hiding the truth.

In Kosovo, for many years after the end of the war family members of the missing hoped that their loved ones were alive, that they were being held prisoners of war. They would go on protests holding pictures of their loved ones with slogans “release all the hostages”. They formed parental councils in order to get the messages through and to strengthen their voices.

In time, as their hopes to find their loved ones alive started fading, the messages at protests changed from “release all the hostages” to “we want the truth”.

Eventually, the daily protests stopped, and as a sign of their continuing struggle, the relatives hung photographs of the missing outside Kosovo’s parliament building. These photographs stayed there for many years and would gradually fade and decompose in the elements. When they finally faded to nothing the mothers would replace them with new photographs, hoping that their plight would not be forgotten.

Gradually, as post-war Kosovo transitioned to a peaceful society infrastructures started being rebuilt and people slowly moved towards a more positive future. But for the mothers of the missing the conflict was not over, and as society moved forwards they were left to face their suffering alone.

“O son of mine, maybe you are in that bag or in the other one, or in the one that comes next but your mother does not know it. If mother could only know which bag, if it would just have a name on it”. (Drita, lost one son)

The mothers used to wait at the border crossing with Serbia for trucks to arrive carrying nameless remains in body bags. Every once in a while a small number of bodies would be released by the Serb authorities and the mothers would come to the border zone to put flowers next to each nameless body bag, not knowing if their loved one was in that group of returned remains or not. This routine would be repeated countless times in the hope that they might find their loved ones. This caused them repeated trauma and grief. The families had little knowledge of the processes involved and no power over the search and recovery of the remains of the missing. This made their relationship with the authorities in charge very complex. Up until this point there had been three state authorities involved in the loss and the recovery of their loved ones, Serb, International and local Kosovar authorities. None of them involved the relatives in the search to locate the missing, leaving family members mistrusting the authorities as well as suffering from not knowing where they stood in the process.

Once the conflict stops and the media moves on the struggle of the families and the hidden toll of their grief is often forgotten and ignored. They relive their past daily, and exist in a limbo between the inability to go back into the past and no desire to move to the future. These families lack a death narrative, they were unable to say their goodbyes, to say the “I love you’s” or resolve any outstanding issues with their loved ones and in the absence of a death story they find themselves unable to stop imagining what may have happened.

“It affects me a lot. I think of how they were killed. I don’t know what they have done to them…I keep thinking ‘why the three of them at once?’ I don’t know how they were killed, was it with weapons? I wonder why? If they were ill I would have made peace but I cannot make peace with this. Why? How? Why kill my children when they were innocent? They did nothing wrong” (Sadije, lost two sons and her nephew)

The mothers inhabited a space in-between two worlds. Their own death was not something they feared. In contrast it was something they looked forward to, for them it was a way of being in close proximity to their sons once more as well as marking an end to the pain caused by the ambiguity of the search. At the same time the need to live overwhelmed their desire to die. They felt they had to live to search for remains, or in the hope that their sons might come back alive, or even to live in order to protect the remains that they had found and now buried.

“For me I would like to go as soon as possible. On the other hand, after all they have done, now I want to live as long as possible, to have my strength and health until this ends, so they do not touch my son. I had asked God to join him every day. Now I want a long life so that I can protect his body, so that they do not touch him again, because I go and talk to him”. (Kumrije, lost her only son)

This mother had found her son and reburied him but had been informed by the authorities that she needed to return his remains for more forensic testing. She was not able to protect her son when he was abducted but once she had his remains she found the strength to live and to fight. The desire to have a place of mourning for her was stronger than the knowledge that the remains she possessed may not be entirely her son’s.

The grave became an important link to her son and and made possible the reconnection of the mother-son bond that had been broken with his abduction and murder. The grave also represented the end of her inner conflict and anxiety caused by the ambiguity and as she said “now I can go and talk to him”

The thought of revisiting that ambiguity again was unbearable for her, now she felt she needed to protect him from further harm as well as to protect herself from revisiting the ambiguity.

In the absence of their loved ones the only remaining link for these mothers were their children’s belongings. They became a reminder as well as an insurance that as long as the mothers lived their children's memory would go on. These clothes took up emotional as well as physical space as if the mothers were trying to recreate their children’s presence through their clothes. Unable to protect their son’s when they were taken, their belongings became something they could protect and whose fate they could control.

“Yes, I have all of his clothes. Unfortunately they have taken all of his shoes…It was difficult to wash his clothes….I have folded them, he has his own wardrobe, he has his watch…I often open his wardrobe and smell them…They are the memory of my son…I will always keep them”. (Besa, lost her only son)

Once they had found their loved ones the mothers were able to restore a level of certainty in their lives. A realisation that the lives that they had once had were gone enabled them to build a new reality where grief did not diminish but was compartmentalised into part of a daily routine.

The identification process reestablished the missing as people, which gave them the chance for a reconnection to their family as well as a connection to a place and time.

Now the families were able to construct a story of the death of their loved one. Although they did not know all the circumstances they were able to construct a narrative that not only helped them to manage their grief but also provided proof of crimes committed and meant that their loss would not be forgotten.