Hundreds of citizens gathered on Tuesday at the Adem Jashari Memorial Complex in Prekaz of Skenderaj to light fires that marked the ‘The Epic of Kosovo,’ or ‘Epopeja e UCK-se’.

25 years have passed since more than 50 members of the Jashari family and their relatives were killed by Serbian forces. 

‘The Epic of Kosovo,’ is an event commemorating the three-day attack on Prekaz in Drenica, often referred to as the event that sparked the beginning of the Kosovo war.

The history of the Jashari family and its exhibits are located in the Museum of the Epic of the Liberation Army of Kosovo.

On Monday, a solemn session was organized by the Kosovo Assembly, marking the 25th anniversary of the KLA started with a minute of silence for all those who fell for the freedom of Kosovo.

In the session, President Vjosa Osmani said that the events of March 5, 6 and 7, 1998 constitute ‘not only our memory of the newest history of Kosovo, but also one of the strongest pillars on which our new state was built.’

“The exercise given on March 5 by commander Adem Jashari together with his family was an exercise to mobilize the girls and boys of the KLA, who during the three days of the battle in Prekaz, in a heroic confrontation with the forces of the genocidal regime of Serbia, won eternity,”  she said.

PM Albin Kurti said that the resistance of the Jashari family in Prekaz is not a single branch in the tree of the modern history of Kosovo, but is the very trunk of this tree.

“Hamza and Ademi would become martyrs in the war for the freedom of Kosovo, in March 1998, while their older brother, Rifat, would have to continue their common cause,” said Kurti.

The Jashari home and graves are monuments of  cultural heritage commemorating the events of March 5, 6 and 7, 1998, when the forces of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime killed 20 members of Adem Jashari’s immediate family and  more than 30 of his relatives.

Of the Jashari family who were present during the three-day attack, only Bashkimi Jashari, Rifat’s son, now the Commander of the Kosovo Security Forces, KSF, and Besarta, Hamza’s daughter,  are still alive.