Tirana – Shortly after the murder of 17-year-old Mary who, along with her 70 year old grandfather, was executed in the name of ‘Kanun’ in Dukagjin, a bill is due to be drafted with the aim to minimize blood feud phenomenon. According to Agim Loci, Head of the House of Justice and National Reconciliation, blood feud is experiencing an expansion and is expressed with a greater fury, surpassing old traditions and norms, especially when it claims the lives of minors, girls and priests, which are cases that happen randomly in Albania. According to Loci, the U.S. Embassy has requested the designing of a draft to protect the families affected by blood feud, a draft which afterwards is to be presented to the Albanian government.

‘Neither ‘Kanun’ nor logic nor reason demands the killing of a wife, a child, a priest and an elder, but here in Albania the term ‘Kanun’ has gone beyond every limit, and most of the people have no knowledge on it. Our institute stresses and will firmly stress that law must be applied in our country, not the ‘Kanun’. We are preparing a file for the American Embassy, which from its side will submit it to the Albanian government in order to approve it as a law. So, stronger measures will be applied to reduce and minimize this phenomenon that is claiming the lives of many innocents,’ Loci said.

So far, blood feuds have claimed the lives of 9 children in Albania. Although in most cases this happens due to negligence, police say that only in the districts of Shkodra, Puka and Malesi e Madhe about 200 families with 116 members, among them 21 children, are in isolation as a result of blood feuds.

Jul Kasapi