The parents of Konstantinos Katsifas, the 35-year-old member of the Greek minority in Albania who was murdered by the Albanian police on the Greek National Day of October 28th, sent a letter to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stating “you have forgotten us”.
Katsifas was shot by Albanian police special forces from close range after he had surrendered.
Albanian authorities tempered with the autopsy findings before they allowed a Greek coroner to examine the body of the young man and refused to give the body to his family for burial. They finally did so only when the European Parliament was alerted of the many serious human rights violations against the Greek minority.
The man’s parents, Yiannis and Vasileia Katsifa, in an interview they described a letter they sent to the Greek Prime Minister about the killing of their son.
In their letter, they describe the daily hardships the members of the indigenous ethnic Greek minority face in Albania as a result of the government’s anti-minority policies.
They asked the Prime Minister to intervene in order for some light to be shed in the case of their son’s murder.
“This is what we want, we ask for the truth to come to light. We want the Greek State to intervene and provide a complete report of the case”, Vasileia Katsifa pleaded in the letter.
Katsifas’ mother also expressed her disappointment and anger regarding the indifference shown by the Greek state. “We are complaining and we are very angry, too. We are the forgotten Greeks here (in Albania) and my son gave his life for the flag. I feel very angry inside.”
