With the Serbian general elections just two months away, Alice Taylor spoke to academic, researcher and human rights activist Flora Ferhati-Sachsenmaier about her years of research into the "administrative ethnic cleansing" of ethnic Albanian Serbian citizens in the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia. Over the last ten years, Ferhati's work shows that almost 4000 ethnic Albanians have been removed from voter lists due to so-called address passivization. The Serbian government says they no...

From raki to Erion Veliaj, the Doha Metro to the ghost airport of Kukes, here are the top 20 stories you read from Exit.al in 2021.

As we come to the end of the year, I have been saving some of the most outrageous, offensive, bizarre, and downright untrue things said by Albanian politicians and public figures. Here are just a few of them!

The stories we’ve told you so far have been of patriots and ordinary citizens who fell foul of Albania’s brutal communist regime. But for this episode of the memory files, we wanted to give you a slightly different perspective. Koco Theodosi was an elite member of the communist party and a politburo member. He held many high-ranking positions, including that of deputy prime minister. He and his family lived in Blloku, an area of ​​the city shut off from the rest of the country. This small...

All of the stories we have shown you so far have been different in various ways. But the one thing, sewing them all together with a black and unbreakable thread, is the pain felt by not being able to retrieve their loved ones’ remains.  Being able to retrieve their bones, lay them to rest, and give them the funeral they deserve is of great importance to these families. Not being able to do this leaves them with a gaping wound that will not heal. Not only do they suffer from the unknown, but...

Like a cat that toys with its prey before dealing the lethal blow, the Albanian communist regime liked to inflict psychological cruelty on its victims before destroying them completely. Once they identified an enemy, they would use every tool at their disposal to crush their spirit, break down their strength, and render them helpless before condemning them to a lifetime in prison, or death. This demonstrates not only the physical brutality executed by the regime, but it shows they were cold...