Arlinda Zekaj repeatedly went to the police seeking protection, but the authorities thought she was exaggerating the situation. On October 25, the 49-year-old again gave testimony against her husband, who was subsequently arrested. She also sought protection from his relatives, but her requests went unheeded.
Police escorted Zekaj home, where the person who would kill her was waiting.
Të lidhura
None found
At 8:58 p.m., she got out of the police car. Moments later, police received an emergency call. When officers returned to her home at 9:10 p.m., they found her body. She had been killed with an axe in the bedroom. Her brother-in-law, A. S., was suspected of the murder and was on the run at the time.
The killing took place late on October 25, 2026, in Vitomiricë, a village near Peja in western Kosovo. It sparked an outcry and protests attended by thousands in several cities across the country.
This is the eighth femicide in Europe’s youngest country this year and perhaps the most brutal. Unlike many killings of women in recent years, Zekaj’s death came after Kosovo’s police and prosecutors failed to respond to her requests for help.
Ministers refuse to step down
On October 26, one of the first public responses came in the form of a protest: a group of feminist activists threw red paint outside the Kosovo government headquarters in Pristina.
At the building’s entrance, they placed a banner reading: “The state killed Arlinda!” Anger continued to fill the streets in the days that followed, with thousands of people carrying photographs of women who had been killed. Another slogan frequently heard at the protests was: “The government has blood on its hands.”
On Sunday, November 1, 2026, thousands of people gathered again for protests across Kosovo.
Protesters are demanding that the police officers and prosecutors responsible for the handling of Zekaj’s case face criminal charges. They are also calling for the resignations of Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla and Justice Minister Donika Gërvalla. In March 2026, Prime Minister Albin Kurti had appointed Gërvalla national coordinator for protection against domestic violence.
So far, neither Sveçla nor Gërvalla has agreed to resign. Kurti, meanwhile, has acknowledged that some state institutions in Kosovo have “failed.”
The danger had been flagged
The killing did not happen without warning signs.
During the summer, Arlinda Zekaj had reported her husband for making threats. The court in Peja subsequently issued a protection order: temporary custody of their son was granted to her, as was use of the family home. The order allowed her husband to live in the same house but required him to stay at least two meters away from her. Outside the home, he had to keep a distance of 20 meters.
Zekaj declined to go to a women’s shelter because she wanted to live in her own home with her son.
Even after obtaining the protection order, she went to the police several more times, reporting, among other things, threats from her brother-in-law.
One particularly troubling warning came in a report she made just three days before her death.
On October 22, Zekaj told police that relatives of her husband were staying in her home against her wishes. A. S. was among them.
According to Zekaj, he had threatened her: “Leave, or I’ll kill you!”
Although a direct death threat had been reported, by the time Zekaj was killed, A. S. had been questioned only as a witness in the case against her husband.
On October 27, 2026, after the killing, police arrested A. S. near Peja. He is under investigation for murder.
“Collapse of the state”
Since 2010, 55 women in Kosovo have been killed by their partners or family members. In many cases, the killings followed years of documented violence and reports that went unheeded.
In recent years, Kosovo’s governments have adopted several laws and regulations aimed at combating violence against women more effectively. Among the measures, perpetrators of such killings can now receive life sentences.
Activists point out, however, that the responsible institutions do not implement these measures consistently or in a coordinated way. Those institutions include the police, social services, prosecutors’ offices and courts.
In an article for the Nacionale news portal, lawyer Njomeza Zejnullahu writes: “After every killing, we hear the same word: failure. ‘The institutions have failed.’ I disagree. Failure is when something happens once, when a system that usually works breaks down at a particular point. When cases recur, when the victims are almost always women and each of them has previously knocked on an institution’s door, this is no longer failure. This is the collapse of the state and society in the face of women themselves.”
What needs to be done?
After Arlinda Zekaj’s killing, several senior police officials in Peja and the surrounding areas were suspended. A prosecutor who had handled her reports was also temporarily removed from her duties.
For the protesters, these measures are not enough.
“Everyone in the chain of responsibility must not only be removed from their positions for failing to perform their official duties, but also be prosecuted,” Liridona Sijarina, a political scientist and feminist activist with the Kosovo Feminist Collective, told DW.
“This concerns not only police officers, prosecutors and judges, but also the mayor of Peja, Gazmend Muhaxheri, and ultimately the ministerial level as well.”
According to Sijarina, feminist activists want the Ministry of Internal Affairs to establish a special unit. It would treat women’s safety as a matter of national security and focus on preventing femicides.
Activists are also calling on the government to prioritize the draft law on affordable social housing. In their view, the law should also allow women subjected to domestic violence to be housed in social housing.
“We believe,” Sijarina says, “that the way institutions have acted so far will only deepen women’s distrust of the state and, as a result, lead to an escalation of violence against them.
The government has the power to show whether it takes women’s lives seriously by taking a clear position on our demands.”
