The murder of the 17-year-old Marie Qukaj, one week ago, together with her grandfather, more than a double murder, was a warned crime. The Blood Feud Reconciliation Association in Shkoder declared that they tried several times to make possible some reconciliation between the families, but the Prroi family refused.

Besides the successes that we have had with reconciliations and several conflicts, we have also had some families that have refused reconciliation”, says Mustafa Daia.

What remains concerning, is that the families in blood feud that refuse reconciliation so that they can take their own revenge are many.

Tirana, homage for Maria

Hundreds of citizens participated at the homage meeting organized by the civil society against the blood feud phenomenon, keeping banners with the photo of the 17-year-old Maria, the girl who was executed in the name of “Kanun”, together with her 70 year old grandfather in Dukagjin.

The citizens lit candles and wreaths near the photo of Maria, while the organizers appealed to raise awareness among the society and the state structures for stopping the phenomenon of Kanun.

Present in this meeting was the US Ambassador in Tirana, Mr. Alexander Arvizu.

The blood feud phenomenon was treated at Top Channel’s Fiks Fare, which brought the images of the isolated families in Lezhe and Shkoder, and the strange reactions of the local structures, even with comments like “they have their own problems”.

Fiks Fare brought the history of a family that has been isolated for two years and a half in Kalivac, Lezhe. The family asked the help of the state, because another blood feud crime took place.

The teachers in Dukagjin, Shkoder, declared for Top Channel that more than 120 families are isolated because of the blood feuds, and hundreds of children have dropped off school.

“The situation is alarming and the appeals against the blood feuds are falling in deaf ears”, says a Shkoder school teacher.

Official blood feud database

The state police has identified 200 families that are in blood feud in the districts of Shkoder, Puke and Malesi e Madhe, where 116 people are isolated in their homes, according to the Criminal Information Processing Office.

For the first time, the State Police is producing an official document which shows the blood feud situation.

This document identifies that there are 48 families in Shkoder, with 116 members, 21 of which are children who cannot even go to school, while two young students have dropped out of the university.

The Police database notes that there are 47 families in blood feud for the Puke District, with most of them in communes. The document received by Top Channel identifies the family data of both families that are in a blood feud, the age of the males, the time when the feud started and the cause.

 According to the analysis, Shkoder District is ranked first, with 122 families, and all the young children that do not go to school come from this district, together with the two students that have quit their studies.

The Free Thought Forum, with the support of the US Embassy, produced the first database three years ago, concluding that the Shkoder district had 84 isolated families.

The production of this study by the Shkoder Police seems a good sign that the state has finally taken the blood feud problem seriously.