Research materials

In March, the Federal Board that receives and decides upon asylum claims in Belgium has met Operazione Colomba’s volunteers in Shkodër, Albania. Over the last few years, many Albanians have asked for asylum in Belgium because of their involvement in the blood feud’s phenomenon. Therefore, two members of the research department of the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons in Belgium took part to a fact finding mission in Albania in order to update their information and understanding of the phenomenon of “gjakmarrja/hakmarrja”. During the meeting, the belgian delegation had the chance to know more about  Operazione Colomba’s activities against this phenomenon in Albania and its field experience in order to understand how that practice works nowadays, which is its geographical/quantitative distribution and which could be its solution. (more…)

Operazione Colomba supports #UNËJAMILIRË, the awareness campaign against blood feuds. Since 2010 Operazione Colomba is present in Albania to help involved families to live free from the burden of the blood feud.

The Ancona Court of Appeal grants international protection for humanitarian reasons to an Albanian applicant, who had been denied at first instance. The decision has great importance as it recognizes that forms of customary justice, such as the phenomenon of blood feud according to the ancient Kanun code, may be grounds for seeking international protection.
Moreover the sentence explicity recognizes the existence and the social danger of a phenomenon that “attributes to the family members of the victim of the murder […] two possible sanctions, or the physical elimination of the killer, or the inhuman treatment of self-isolation at home and hence the “social” elimination of the person to be punished”.

From meltingpot an insight into the decision

Two nights ago, in the village of Korotiza of Drenas, a car with Albanian plate hit three pedestrians. As a result, one of them, identified as Bujar Bullaku of Drenas, lost his life. Yesterday Bullaku family has accompanied the son in the final journey, and during the funeral service of the deceased Bullaku family has made a very valuable gesture. They forgave the murder of the family’s boy by the author of the accident, whom it has learnt to be from Tropoja. (more…)