UN: Albania must ‘turn page’ on communist-era disappearances

Houria Es-Slami, head of the United Nations Working Group of the Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, speaks during a news conference in Tirana, Monday, Dec. 12, 2016. U.N. human rights officials have called on Albanian authorities to provide more reparations to families of around 6,000 people who disappeared during the former communist regime. (Associated Press

TIRANA, Albania — U.N. human rights officials have called on Albanian authorities to provide more reparations to families of around 6,000 people who disappeared during the former communist regime. Houria Es-Slami led the U.N. Working Group of the Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which ended a weeklong visit to the country on Monday. She said that Albania needs to “turn the painful page of the past.” “All victims of enforced disappearances and their relatives have the right to full reparation, which includes compensation, satisfaction, restitution, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition,” a preliminary report said. Disappearances carried out by the communist regime occurred from 1944, when it came to power after World War II, until it fell in 1990 after a students’ protest. During communist rule, about 6,000 people were killed, 34,000 imprisoned and more than 50,000 sent to isolated internment camps.

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